


Superhero, Thanks For Asking

by laZardo



Series: RMWT: Air, Land & Seadweller [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human/Troll Society, Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Real Men Wear Tights
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 08:21:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 64,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/859979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laZardo/pseuds/laZardo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up again." - Troll Curtiss "50 Caegar" Jackson</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ==> FILE 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SergeantMeow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SergeantMeow/gifts), [Bananaramses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananaramses/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Real Men Wear Tights](https://archiveofourown.org/works/469179) by [Bananaramses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bananaramses/pseuds/Bananaramses), [SergeantMeow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SergeantMeow/pseuds/SergeantMeow). 



> Originally on my [tumblr](http://f-r-o-things.tumblr.com/post/52133142467/rmwt-one-of-two-shot), now with a thicker rap sheet, here's what was supposed to be a "two-shot" but may become more.
> 
> Special thanks and many apologies to BananaRamses, PanicIsMyRain and Sergeant Meow for the inspiration.

**Bay Area Special Enforcement District**  
**General Operations Database (BASED-GOD)  
** **SuperCrime Unit - Monitoring Division (SCU-M)**

 **Login: ohpeeec**  
**Pass: ***********

**== >RETRIEVE UROBOROS/DESC**

Name: "Uroboros"  
Real Name: Unknown

Description:

Female(?), approx 7’6 with muscular body figure, 220-260 lb. Completely green-skinned. White fabric resembling ancient Greek attire covering privates(?) and lower part of face under bright green eyes. Eyelashes appear to be the vigilante’s only body hair.

Vigilante possesses a set of six white wings, the longest pair of which is approximately 15' in wingspan, with varying and adjustable degrees of luminescence. Vigilante is adept at maneuvering wings through tight spaces.

**== > RETRIEVE UROBOROS/RSHEET**

Charges (updated as of 04-13-XXXX)

Vandalism (9 cts.)  
Assault & Battery (25 cts.)  
Obstruction of Justice (4 cts.)  
Attempted Homicide (6 cts.)

**== > RETRIEVE UROBOROS/BIO**

Biography:

Alleged winged vigilante operating in San Francisco and across the Bay Area since [REDACTED]. Appears to specialize in attacking members of the Felt crime syndicate.

Reported to be using Angel Island as a hideout (nest?) but repeated investigation has turned up nothing of importance.

**== > RETRIEVE UROBOROS/MO**

Testimony from suspects and witnesses describe a combatant particularly versed in close-quarters combat, with techniques reminiscent of Krav Maga and BJJ. Further review suggests these are similar to if not enhanced versions of CQC techniques practiced during SFPD training.

Suspect has a history of especially targeting suspects wanted for capital offenses as well as SFPD personnel under IAD investigation for various causes ranging for embezzlement to police brutality.

Alias derived from symbol left at crime scenes, a circular serpent eating its own tail. It is unknown as to what Uroboros refers to her(?)self as.

**== > RETRIEVE UROBOROS/UPD8FILE -6m**

10-31-XXXX - Attempted mugging victim reports “she-Hulk with wings" fending off an anti-gay mob that attacked him in South San Francisco. Victim had no reported injuries. At least two members of mob are hospitalized in critical condition, but all suspects are placed under arrest. Charges pending as of update.

11-11-XXXX - 911 call to gunshots reported in Chinatown. SFPD responds to situation, reports several troll and human members of 18K and Sun On Yee knocked unconscious. Known arms smuggling suspect [REDACTED] affiliated with Felt Syndicate's Secondary is hospitalized in critical condition. Uroboros serpent ‘mark’ left by [REDACTED]’s location.

11-25-XXXX - High speed chase southbound on I-5 involving SFPD and CHP is violently ended when suspects' vehicle is run out of control by Uroboros. Suspects, members of Felt Secondary, are apprehended and hospitalized in critical condition.

12-08-XXXX - Officers dispatched to street chase involving Uroboros and Felt Primary member [REDACTED] alias Itchy. Itchy eludes both Uroboros and SFPD as the vigilante seems to focus more effort on preserving the lives of officers that Itchy attacks during chase.

12-30-XXXX - [REDACTED], wanted in 3 states for various sexual offenses, is left barely conscious on the front steps of the 9th Precinct. Serpent mark left on newspaper clipping stuck to his body by his own blood. Newspaper clipping is from 18 August XXXX issue of a local paper describing his acquittal on several rape charges due to potential witness intimidation.

01-12-XXXX - Uroboros reported to have intercepted and stopped an attempted kidnapping sexual assault in Hunter's Point. Victim is freed from suspect's vehicle with minor injuries and reports that "a big green angel had heard her cries for help", however the suspect is manually extracted and hospitalized with severe spinal injury. Serpent mark made from curled-up rear bumper.

01-24-XXXX - Dispatch to condominium residence of Det. [REDACTED] in Noe Valley. Officers and EMT [REDACTED] arrive to scene to find Det. [REDACTED] critically wounded. Serpent mark found drawn on front door. Det. [REDACTED] was under IAD investigation for embezzlement charges.

01-26-XXXX - Possible Uroboros spotting in rafters of Barbasol Stadium in Santa Clara by maintenance worker, verified by SCU evaluation of security camera footage. No serpent mark left behind. Possible historical coincidence in that this marks the anniversary of the "Freak Gust of Wind" incident that cost the San Francisco 49ers their most recent playoff run, but no further investigation is made.

02-07-XXXX - 911 dispatch to unconscious individual found on a dock in Presidio. Person was identified as same individual reported to have jumped from Golden Gate Bridge the previous night only to “disappear in a flash of light." Serpent mark found by entrance to dock.

02-13-XXXX - Eyewitness reports Uroboros consoling a troll in Golden Gate Park in broad daylight. Police dispatched to scene, but Uroboros leaves before any contact is made. Troll identified as [REDACTED] on the Reno County Sheriff's Department's Missing Persons list. [REDACTED] had gone missing after the death of his lusus in a hate crime incident. Serpent mark apparently found painted onto a quilt that [REDACTED] was found huddled up in.

02-22-XXXX - Uroboros file assigned to Det. Ohpeee in SCU. Det. Ohpeee recommends immediate closing of file on grounds of “circumstantial evidence" and “overreliance on hearsay."

02-23-XXXX - Recommendation unanimously rejected by both Deployment (Remington, A) and Monitoring (Quistis, W).

02-29-XXXX - SFPD SWAT dispatched to armed robbery involving Felt Primary member [REDACTED] alias Quarters at First Alternian Bank in Daly City. TAC teams surround building only to witness Uroboros directly intervene. [REDACTED], TAC leader orders intervention. There are no civilian casualties. The Felt Secondary team brought in by Quarters are neutralized by TAC teams, however Quarters himself is found knocked out and bound by what appear to be torn up money bags inside the vault area. Serpent mark apparently left in the form of carefully-arranged bills of various denominations.

03-11-XXXX - LAPD reports possible Uroboros sighting during confrontation between vigilante Infernal Rage and first-time supervillain Erigami in Santa Monica. Uroboros appears to make no attempt to intervene as Erigami is defeated.

**== > RETRIEVE UROBOROS/SCUTTLE**

SuperCrime Unit Threat-Target Level: Medium-High

Recommendation: It is advised that all non-SCU law enforcement personnel treat Uroboros as "armed and dangerous" and no attempt should be made to apprehend or neutralize Uroboros without express authorization from SCU. It is also highly recommended that tracking should commence on Uroboros' trending in "superhero spotting" social media pages in order to determine where this supercriminal may strike next.

**== > EXIT**


	2. ==> FILE 2

**Bay Area Special Enforcement District  
General Operations Database (BASED-GOD)**  
**SuperCrime Unit - Monitoring Division (SCU-M)**

**== > RETRIEVE UROBOROS/UPDATE**

04-15-XXXX - Crime report appended to Uroboros file by Det. Ohpeee:

Officer dispatched to foiled street robbery attempt in the Castro. [REDACTED], the robbery attempt’s victim, reported that a passer-by helped fend off the robbers before fleeing the scene. Two suspects were arrested and hospitalized in stable condition. Black & purple wig retrieved for evidence.

Witness sees “bright streak of light" across sky just after fellow assailant leaves. No serpent mark left at scene.

**== > EXIT**

* * *

**11:11pm  
Parkmerced  
** **San Francisco, CA**

Night has fallen over the City by the Bay, the light pollution causing all the stars to flee below the level of your current place of residence.

You are fucking exhausted after your first finals presentations at the Academy of Art, and your camera takes its rightful place sprawled across your desk as you immediately head to the bathroom for a shower and a change of clothing.

Normally you would reward yourself by indulging in the city’s club scene. Or you’d head out to the athletic club and try not to gag on the chlorine during your workout - among other landdweller-introduced contaminants in the pool, which you swear to Gog have to be only slightly LESS tolerable than just swimming to Oakland and back.

But tonight you prefer to indulge yourself in your personal obsessions, of which you have a few. You throw off those pompous rags that your lusus has you dress in to maintain your image in public, and put on something decidedly more…you. Something high-class of course, not worthy of being exposed to the fumes and vapors and debris that saturate the landdweller altitudes.

Once fully clad in an outfit that is _definitely_ more "you", you take out your camera’s memory card and jam it into its proper place in your MacBook Pro’s card reader before taking the laptop with you into bed, the soft fabric of your stockings sliding smoothly up against the fabric of your comforter. You withdraw a 3-ring binder from a nearby drawer and open it up while you wait for the $1500 machine to boot up.

One of your obsessions, as it happens, is tracking the city’s superheroes. However few there actually are in this town anyway.

Unlike other parts of the world, San Francisco has a police department that isn’t comically ineffective, and its constant shedding of trends left “superheroes" in the passé bin like last season’s  _haute couture._  That along with their somewhat irrational yet understandable fear of superpowers causing the kind of destruction that almost turned the Bay Area into a Zone of Alienation a few years ago means that superheroes and supervillains are a forbidden, guilty pleasure that rarely escape the comic books.

So it’s understandable to you and a lot of people that you latch onto one particular superhero or supervillain when they emerge out of the Bay Area rather than a whole variety of them. 

For you and a lot of people, that superhero is Uroboros, and unlike other superheroes that people can at least tell are trolls or humans, people aren’t quite sure exactly what she(?) is.

Like a proper trendy hipster, you keep track of them through as many social networks as possible with as many badly pixelated 500x500 pictures as you can with a little bit of insightful commentary and liberally-sprinkled hash tags for flavor. You follow tips and investigate leads in your free time to get a closer look, which gives you a similar thrill to following the adventures in those Problem Sleuth comic books you read when you were freshly pupated and not yet into magical fiction.

But what’s not properly trendy about this hobby - or at least not as technologically savvy - is the way you’ve also kept a scrapbook of photos from slightly more professional print media outlets. 

Some of them are yours, some of them are taken by people that clearly wouldn’t know their shutters from their sphincters if it got shoved upside the nook end. There clearly isn’t much difference between either, but you don’t tend to notice. It’s just diamonds that have yet to be cut, you keep telling yourself.

Still, if there’s something driving your luxuriously bleak existence right now apart from waiting for Feferi to find a free minute in her social worker job in New York City to respond to your empty platitudes, it’s the urge to get your webbed seadweller feet into the door of photojournalism before you’re inevitably and eternally anchored to your "family" maritime shipping and weapons business that happens to take up half of the Port of Long Beach, and that's just on the West Coast alone.

Today there are no worthy-enough pictures on your memory card for your scrap book or whatever glossy tabloid wants to print. But that doesn’t stop you from feeling some kind of inner glow at your mad photography skillz.

Tonight, however, even your pictures concur with a glow of their own.

"Those are some rather wonderful pictures you have," comes a voice from your window.

It’s the voice of an angel. Or at least the sweet siren-y kind that humans believe in, pitched distinctly lower to compensate for the speaker's size. Trolls have a much different view of angels than humans, but that’s for some other alternate universe killing spree fantasy of yours.

What matters more right now is that the voice is coming from right behind you, from the unnatural source of light illuminating your room.

Specifically, from the bandana-covered mouth of Uroboros, who has somehow opened your window and is leaning on the doorway to your fairly spacious balcony.

Those who have seen this green giant(ess?) up close know that Uroboros cuts more than just an imposing figure - and now you can add yourself to that list. She actually has to duck a little to get in, like she's entering that perspective exhibit at the Exploratorium.

"Oh gog wwhat-" You scramble slowly away from her toward the edge of your bed, catching yourself before you fall over.

"Don’t worry, Eridan. I don’t bite," she says, her bright green eyes twinkling with a delight you may safely assume is sadistic. She then seems to ‘dim’ her wings so that they don’t glow indoors. “And I won’t, even if I could."

"H…Howw do you knoww wwho I-?!" You’ve always had this strange stutter to your voice when pronouncing long W’s. And don’t get anyone started on your inability to pronounce ‘v’s.

Uroboros crouches a little as she walks in, her strange toe claws brushing across the carpet as the breeze ruffles her moonlit tunic(?) like some kind of Zach Snyder CGI fantasy film. She doesn’t seem to mind the confines too much, almost as if it’s something she’s used to. “I am a fan of your…enthusiasm,  _Erigami_."

Your gray skin seems to go rainbow-drinker white as you realize that ‘Oh god she knows that too.’

You tried this super-person business a while ago, inspired by suddenly sighting both the Heir and the Hemogoblin during your post-graduation vacation in Seattle...and failed rather miserably to boot. “Erigami" had a stupidly opulent disguise, brashly attempted to confront one of the local heroes and ended up publicly exposed in every sense of the word. Then the unholy trinity of Hollywood gossip, YouTube and WorldStar HipHop turned Erigami into the by-word for supervillain failure before you could finish downloading the rejections from every art college in the county.

Your blatant hemoism, while practically expected from a nautical aristocrat such as yourself, certainly did nothing for your image - or at least no more significant damage than your own stupidity did.

Ultimately your unconscionable failure at being a supervillain is why your lusus shipped you out of the City of Angels and All Their Wrath and caged you in this beautifully sterile glass and metal condo South of Market with a panoramic view of the Bay. He doesn’t want anything happening to his Little Prince before he’s old enough to inherit Half of the Freaking Port of Long Beach. And facing the Port of Oakland every day is a sobering reminder of your fate, set in stone above the water you once called home.

Of course, by "anything happening to you," he really doesn’t mean anything that could result in your  _death_ as much as something that could further dent the already-snobby Ampora "Family" image. For all Skyhorsedad cares, you could be chainsawed in two by some mid-blood fashion student with a grudge against your taste and the only thing he’d worry about is how much it would take to vat-grow another Ampora heir in your place.

And although it is actually your so-called “older brother" in line to inherit half the Port of Long Beach with you as the first backup, his attempts to be some kind of struggling wannabe-human musician mean the rights have been thrown up in the air at the very worst.

Speaking of image, it really does nothing that one of the city’s top  "supercriminals" (San Francisco officially blankets both heroes and villains under their SuperCrime Unit) now sees you partaking in your  _other_  little obsession. The kind of obsession that you keep telling your lusus was only a thing that happened “that one particular month a couple years ago." The kind of obsession that while acceptable in this town is still abhorred especially among the upper castes and many more humans to this day.

You, Eridan Ampora, have been caught out as daddy’s Little _Princess_ by the city's most notorious vigilante.

Your first instinct, however, is to leap forward out of bed, do a forward roll across the floor and go for your camera, still on your desk.

But how can you, in your current choice of attire, possibly get to your camera when she is  _already there?_

Her dexterity in small spaces like this would surprise you if it weren’t  _your_  space she was in. She gives you a curious look as she deflects your arm in your pitiful attempt to reach out for your camera.

"Your reflexes haven’t rusted one bit, I see!" she says, almost like you’re a plaything to her. Like a doll. “I knew I wasn’t wrong to look for you."

You are immediately consumed by unfathomable shame, causing you to fall to your knees before her.

Skyhorsedad might as well have floated right in on you 'bein’ beautiful' and you wouldn’t have felt any more threatened than you do now.

"Please don’t…" you plead, tears starting to trickle from your eyes.

"Don’t worry," she says, reaching an arm out to you. “I don't kick people when they're down."

You softly wave the arm off. “Then w-why-"

"You’ll be surprised, I’m looking for a teammate."

"…you w-what, mate?" Your mouth hangs open, and you’re pretty sure your gills are too.

She chuckles despite your surprise. “One superhero and the few good cops in the department can’t keep the bad guys down in a city this big. You’re one of the few in this entire state that actually has… _previous experience_." 

You cross your arms and look away. “Oh please. Spare me that  _pure heart magical_  bullshit."

You probably don’t realize how hypocritical you sound, seeing as how you’re dressed like you'd fit right into one of those 'animes'. But you do still genuinely believe that magic is just that - fantasy.

"It’s not that. Every superhero’s got their flaws."

"So w-what’s yours?" you ask, turning one glancing eye toward her. You’re pretty well aware of yours.

She pulls up a chair from the table and sits down, eyeing the camera curiously as if it were some kind of alien object. Were you not pouting you’d be genuinely surprised at how well the chair holds up under her (assumed?) weight.

"If I told you, I wouldn’t be a very good superhero, would I?" she replies with what appears to be a knowing smile under her bandanna. “But that’s beside the point. I came looking for you because you’ve got potential."

"W-well I guess you damn w-well knoww that I’m _so vvery good_ at exploitin’ my potential," you add sarcastically, looking down at the carpet.

"Not as a supervillain," she explains, as she puts the camera back on the desk and sits down on the carpet next to you. “You’ve got the drive to be one of the good guys."

"Yeah, wwell-"

"Remember that night on the Castro?" she counters before you can attack again.

You shudder as you remember how you lost your favorite wig.

It was a few days after you arrived in the city, and the night that you decided to sneak out to go clubbing with your favorite outfit on. You had the night of your life, and even better, you chose to go clubbing in a part of town where people could see right through what you were wearing and loved you for it. Or at least as far as the expensive liquor served at the most high-class place in the district could produce in terms of “love." You're a seadweller, gogdammit, you deserve nothing less than the sixth star on the hotel plaque and nothing that can't be purchased with at least a platinum credit card.

All in all, you had fun. And you forced yourself to stay somewhat sober, as you did have class the next morning. But you also had to walk home because you missed the last bus and the Night Owl busses arrived every damn hour.

Somewhere on 21st Street you heard screams coming from a nearby alleyway and no cops around.

You would’ve kept walking. Could’ve left the poor girl to become just another statistic. But you didn’t. You don’t know why you did in the first place, and you still won’t care to find out.

Maybe it was some half-baked notion of redemption. Maybe you just didn’t want to see her get hurt. But somebody was being robbed gogdammit, _somebody has to do something._

Rather than keep going, you walked right into the alleyway where one of the robbers spotted you and was anxious to get some seadweller hide as a bonus after finishing off their current prize.

Long story short: You laid a double smackdown reacharound combo, without any literal reacharounds but definitely with the help of that mace you kept in your Michael Kors. You got nicked a couple times, but nothing that couldn’t be bandaged and passed off as an “accident in sculpting class."

You left the girl and your wig before the cops showed up. You fretted about losing it when you got home, and after being consumed by unfathomable distress you calmed yourself with a hastily-constructed alibi and the fact that there was now one less piece of evvidence for your dad regarding your moonlighting activities.

"That w-was just…I don’t knoww…" You’re starting to breathe erratically, but you don’t recoil from her putting a hand on your shoulder.

"If you want to know what that was," she explains, kneeling in front of you. “Just say so and we’ll find out together. I can tell you now that it wasn’t instinct."

"And if I don’t w-want to?" you ask timidly, “Or if it doesn’t w-work out…"

"If not, we can go our separate ways and no one will know we met," she says, so reassuringly you could swear that it’s like she’s channeling the Dolorosa from the _Ancestors_  comic series only without the villainous deceit that made her the matriarch of the Insufferable Brood. “Not even your dad."

It takes about a minute before you find the will to respond. A full minute in which you constantly glance between her and the ground to figure if she's getting impatient or expecting you to say the wrong thing.

"All right. I'll givve it a shot."

"Excellent!" she exclaims with an enthusiasm that is almost sugary as she gets up. “I’ll be waiting by Pier 43 at the stroke of midnight on Friday. And while I have no problem with how you like to dress, you’ll want to bring something that won’t get snagged so easily."

That, sadly, was something you learned the hard way as Erigami. Or rather semi-learned. You still think you look rather imposing in the purple cape that forms part of the getup you absolutely must please your "family" enterprise with. But when that superhero found a way to snag that $12,000 endangered-species cape in the presence of more than a few bystanders, your presence in the annual WorldStar HipHop fight compilation was guaranteed.

"Your w-wings don’t count?" you ask, though.

She chuckles giddily. “Oh, silly. I can’t exactly just shed  _these._ " It is probably some kind of motherfucking miracle of skill that she’s able to maneuver around the condo without knocking furniture clean over.

"So…howw do I knoww…"

"Know what?" she asks as she gets back to the doorway to your balcony.

"Howw do I knoww you’re not just going to blackmail me!?" You blurt out, before recoiling back into your ball of shame. “Noww that you knoww…"

"If I wanted to, Eridan, I would’ve done it after I saw you get humiliated in L.A. At least my brother can’t see what I do…or know what I know." She looks out at the bright lights of the big city. “I would like to believe that some bad guys deserve second chances."

You probably don’t want to know about the bad guys that don’t fall into the “some" category, going by the clippings in your scrapbook.

"I was a super _vvillain!…_ or tryin’a be," you plead, trying in vain to back yourself out of what you’ve just gotten yourself into. “I’m not a good person."

There appears to be a brief glow of red under her bandana as she climbs the railing.

"Me neither," she says calmly before her wings light up again. “I’ll see you soon!"

The first thing you do the moment she falls off the edge is snatch the camera off your desk and run up to the edge of the balcony - still in your outfit- hastily snapping badly-lit, badly-focused pictures of a streak of glowing white light rocketing across the Bay to points unknown.

As you go back into your room to the sound of Skyhorsedad’s stern paternal neighs of concern behind the locked door, you actually don't worry about how fast you can get the photos up on Instagram tonight.

Instead, after a moment of contemplation, you make for the delete button on your camera and try to figure out what the hell you have in your wardrobe that looks as kick-ass as it is stylish.

**== >FILE END  
**


	3. ==> FILE 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Trigger Warning: Sexual Harrassment_

**Bay Area Special Enforcement District**  
**SuperCrime Unit - Monitoring Division** **(SCU-M)**

 **Username: ohpeeec**  
**Password: **********

 _Welcome, Detective Ohpeee._  
_You have 1 new message(s)._

**== > RETRIEVE AFFILIATE/AMPORA.E/DESC**

**Name:** Eridan Ampora  
**Age (Y/S)*** : N/A / 9.5  
**DOS/B**:** 03-11-19XX  
**POS/B**:** Atlantide S.p.A. (Atlantis Industries) Breeding Facility, Aegean Sea (Int'l Waters)  
**Sex***:** T-Male / Male Ident

 **Description:** 5'11, 160 lb. C-11 (Seadweller-NR). Slender, scrawny build. Prefers to wear long-sleeved, thick clothing and capes(!) except in hottest summer. Copious amounts of jewelry around fingers. Cannot pronounce v's and stutters leading w's. Knowledgeable in female self-defense/CQC techniques.

 **Biography:**  
Eridan Ampora is a resident of the Sunset District in San Francisco. He is currently pursuing a Bachelor's Degree in Photography at the Academy of Art University.

Eridan is currently being groomed to inherit the CEO seat of Atlantis Industries, which is responsible for the development of the world's premier naval warfare systems, including prototype and experimental energy weaponry being tested with NATO and OCU countries (see BUSINESS/DEFENSE/ATLANTIS/PROFILE)

Eridan and Cronus Ampora were grown in a facility owned by Atlantis' Italian subsidiary and raised in Beverly Hills with the express purpose of providing an heir to the CEO seat currently held by Carlos Lazaro.

Eridan attended the Peter Jonathan Gilroy Academy in Pasadena along with Cronus who, as the "first-spawned" of the current Ampora generation was expected to gain the CEO seat. This despite Eridan clearly out-achieving his so-called "brother" in every academic measurement, which bred an egomaniacal inferiority complex in the younger Ampora.

However as Eridan entered high school, Cronus began openly questioning his species identity. At one point the conflict it caused with the company caused him to move to Las Vegas, where he remains attempting to break into the independent music scene. This made Eridan the primary heir to the throne of Atlantis, which in effect sublimated the tendencies he'd grown.

Eridan's inclusion in the SCU database is solely due to his albeit brief experience as a supervillain, as required by the Angel Island Act and in cooperation with the LAPD.

Shortly after graduating from high school, Eridan posted a picture on social media website Instagram of supercriminals Heir and Hemogoblin while on vacation in Seattle. The reaction to that picture inspired him to briefly engage in supercriminal activity as a supervillain named "Erigami." Sporting a lush, white magician's outfit and a flowing cape as well as a violently hemoist attitude, Erigami insisted on referring to his outfit as that of a "scientist."

This half-hearted attempt ended with the loss of his first and only battle at the hands of superhero Infernal Rage on the streets of Hollywood. The resulting unmasking and public humiliation recorded 1 million hits in 12 hours on the WorldStarHipHop fight compilation site.

The incident forced the company to move him out of the city to San Francisco, where he quietly gave up plans of pursuing a military history major and started taking Photography at the Academy of Art.

He currently resides with his lusus, a Cebuano Skyhorse that has taken care of him since his spawning, in Parkmerced. "Skyhorsedad" frequently commutes between San Francisco and Las Vegas to care for both Amporas or otherwise try to keep them in line.

Barring Cronus' return to Atlantis Industries, it is ultimately expected that the company will relocate Eridan out of the city prior to the completion of his studies at the AAU to enroll him in an MBA program, very likely in an Ivy League school or in Europe where he can be closer to his childhood sweetheart Feferi Peixes, herself a corporate heiress.

**== > RETRIEVE AFFILIATE/AMPORA.E/SCUTTLE**

SCU Threat-Target Level: Non-Threat

Recommended Action: No action is currently required from SCU. It is recommended that monitoring begin on his social media pages, as he has been posting possible supercriminal sightings such as Uroboros more frequently than others. The use of social media is proving to be valuable in tracking supercriminal movement in and around SCU's jurisdiction within the boundaries of existing laws.

_*Y/S = Years/Sweeps._

_**S/B = Spawning/Birth._

_***In accordance with the Haynes-Trigger Act and due to the nature of troll reproduction, the letter H- (human) or T-(troll) must be appended to the biological sex of the subject._

* * *

**Pier 43**  
12:02 am

Pier Freaking 43. A nice barren stretch of planks next whose only quality whatsoever is a giant concrete gate that people walked under when stepping out of the ferries that took them here from what used to be Angel Island and all points around. And that's since been moved to a half-pier closer to the promenade, leaving only the stretch of planks and the giant concrete gate.

But you can tell that it's the place that Uroboros wanted to meet you, because it's been blocked off. The city wants to turn Pier Freaking 43 into something more than a barren stretch of planks and a giant concrete gate so they've put up construction 'fences' that aren't linked, meaining you simply slide one open and slide right in. At 3AM, the cops have better things to do than keep an eye on a soon-to-be construction site in a good part of town.

Not that they wouldn't try to keep an eye on you or someone dressed like you lurking in this good part of town. And that's why you find yourself fortunate that there aren't any to do so.

This allows you to ruminate on the fact that Uroboros isn't quite here yet despite your fashionably late arrival.

You eventually stop under the gate, checking your immediate surroundings. The area is lit primarily by the light pollution from the rest of the city.

Oh, and it's cold out. You don't feel that too intensely even though you're wearing your favorite outfit tonight, but you know that it's only gonna get colder if you're just going to stand there.

You pull out your 'backup' cellphone, which is actually the same as your primary cellphone only a different color and one notch down on the smartphone model trim heirarchy because a seadweller like you isn't just gonna settle for some low-blooded drug store flip-phone. You check the time because you don't want to stay out here too long in case somebody else runs into you that isn't Uroboros, let alone if Uroboros really wants you to be her sidekick.

But that's not your most pressing concern at the moment.

"Sup." is the first word out of that concern - in this case, someone else that has run into you, or rather appeared next to you.

You freeze. Your life doesn't flash before your eyes because you're too jolted to think. You just freeze and pull a cringing face.

From the lack of features on his green alien face you can tell he's one of those users of what they call "Bay Area Angel dust." That mutagenic substance that literally has the effect of turning people's skin into some kind of green, plushy...felty...stuff.

You've been offered that stuff before at the clubs. "Charms" they call it, contained in safe briefcases straight out of darkly comedic neo-noir crime movies. But green just does not look good on you _at all_. In fact you'd go so far as to say that if you became mayor, caught wearing this garish shade of lime green or even having it in their blood should be culled on sight.

Anyway. This guy is dressed in about as much as you are, in a skin-tight outfit used by professional runners or cyclers. Even more showy is the fact that the outfit is a complementary dark green to rest of his exposed skin and oh my gog, is that a lemon yellow bowler hat? How high does he - or anyone for that matter - even have to be to wear something like that in the 21st century? There's a big #1 on the hat too, like all it needs are some cans of Four Loko rigged to it that he can sip from.

"Do I knoww you?" you begin with a wince.

"Just travelin' through," Yellow Hat continues. "Wonderin' what a pretty lady like you'd be doin' out this late at night."

So he's soliciting you. Okay. Despite his hat number he wouldn't be _nearly_ the first to try to solicit you, and the way this is going he definitely won't be the first to succeed.

"W-well excuse me but I'm taken an' I'm w-waitin on someone else." You immediately slip your backup cellphone in your purse because your lusus is going to know if you take out another plan on a new one.

You're also flatout lying about not being single.

"Hey, I don't hate. I know you trolls all got the same kinda junk under there!" he continues casually, seeming to appear at either side with every blink of your carefully-mascara'd eyes.

Oh boy. What an asshole. This guy sounds even worse than your so-called 'brother' when he flirts. You really, really _hope_ that he'll stop pestering you at this point.

"An' I'm not just some wwhore, bud," you reply. You quite enjoy dressing like this and the fuck if you'll let anyone reduce you to your clothing for it.

"Hey, I'm sorry if being forward is who I am..." You feel a brief tug at your purse and the next thing you know he's holding your fucking wallet and ID in his hand. "Miss...Brezen Maernt."

Fortunately, you don't break too much of a sweat when he reads your ID out loud, because that clearly isn't your real name. If there's one thing you learned after being humiliated in LA, it's that in the rare case that you're caught out again you don't want to shame the so-called "family name" any more than you did. So it's good that you at least had enough clout with your "family business" to have a California ID made with all the embellishments of the real one.

"Givve that back, you." you snarl as he lets you snatch the ID and wallet back out of his hand.

"Oh. Sorry. I tend to have that effect," he replies as he hands them both back to you with a razor-sharp smirk on his face.

You glare back at him while feeling your wallet to make sure all the credit cards are still there. Not that you can't cancel them with a few points and clicks but Skyhorsedad has this nasty habit of opening your mail before you can read it too.

"W-well if the effect is tryin' to get me into bed w-with you then I'm sorry, the answ-wer is no," you huff, turning your back, crossing your arms.

"Then I guess I'm gonna have to convince you," he says with a tone that will make you regret turning your back on his body.

It's at that moment your mind puts two and two and the one on this douchebag's hat together as your vision is suddenly filled with green streaks.

This is obviously what Uroboros had in mind, some kind of test. She obviously dispensed this dumb but still relatively skilled fuck to try to harass you and then kick his ass after he makes the first move to prove you're not some kind of spontaneous vigilante.

No fucking problem. Well, not a problem apart from the fact that he's sprinting so fast the only thing you can see are the green blurs he leaves from his trail. That you can at least concentrate on and HOPE you know where he grabs you.

You do catch him though when he tries to make a break with your Michael Kors. Your reflexes catch the moment the armstrap leaves your shoulder, your hand catching it before it comes clean off your arm. With your grip stronger than his, you catch the purse and pull it back, bringing his torso into your elbow.

You squint a little from the pain shooting up into your shoulder as you make contact. He isn't quite done yet though, as he tries to make his attack multidimensional, using the arch to give him some wall-sliding space. You can see the barely-visible green-and-flesh colored contours of where he's moving like faint panes of glass amidst the light pollution.

And then you can feel his hand in your wig.

Oh, it's on now.

The moment you know he's headed behind you, you lean forward and thrust one leg backward. The impact that suddenly races up your leg, into your pelvis and up your spine is jolting but it tells you that you've nailed him good.

So good that you turn around and there he is, knocked the fuck out and sprawled across the pier in an awkward slump, your wig landing next to his fallen yellow bowler hat. If exhaustion wasn't finally starting to have its way from you with whatever rush suddenly powered you to perform these amazing feats, you'd think you'd be happy you knocked him the fuck out.

You pick up your wig from right next to where Yellow Hat landed and put it on, adjusting yourself.

"Bastard," you mutter, before turning to leave and finding five black-suited thugs wielding painful melee strife specibi blocking your route out of the pier. Three humans and a couple of common-blood trolls.

Rather than be intimidated (though actually, you are quite visibly unsettled), you come to one or more conclusions.

Conclusion #1 is that this is Level 2. Or 5. More motherfuckers from the enemy dispenser so Uroboros makes sure you can handle more than one of them.

"Hey, there's that leprechaun prick," one of the human goons points out, clearly past you and at the knocked out green man.

You are clearly not a dwarfish Irish imp from folklore, so they are clearly referring to that weirdo in the green suit. Duh.

The second conclusion is that they're Uroboros' cleanup crew or goons and they'll take you to her secret hideout or something.

"Yeah, w-well, you can take him," you say, continuing to fix your wig. "I'm gonna be on my merry w-way off'a this plank."

"Not so fast, little girl," the lead goon says, wielding what appears to be a sai-kind specibus. "We've chased the fucker this far and we're not leaving without a little something to take home."

Okay, scratch conclusion #2. Although these fucks aren't quite big, you're not about to let yourself make the first move.

You slowly begin walking toward them, hoping to find a gap you can easily abscond through. You could jump into the Bay but that'll kill your landdwelling smartphone double dead before your body begins to react adversely to the toxins swirling about and okay that didn't work because now they're fucking surrounding you like sharks circling a lifeboat.

You fail to not show any sort of fear as one of the other humans takes out a machetekind, and...

Fuck no.

Oh fuck no.

_Oh fuckity fucking fuck no._

They did **not** just try poking it down your skirt and threatening your fucking $100 panties with a machete, let alone your genitalia.

And even though you are only able to restrain yourself from speaking, your body makes it very clearly known that none of these fucks are leaving the dock with the ability to sit down.

You are Eridan Ampora and you are **not** going to be a fucking victim.

"Oooh, looks like she's already gettin' steamy!"

You're not exactly sure if that is glowing steam wisping off of your body, all you know is that suddenly you've grabbed his wrist, pulled it AND the machete out of your skirt. You can feel a streak of fire burning across your torso because in your hope-induced rage you've dragged the sharp side of the blade up your body and it hurts like a motherfucker and you are going to make them pay for trying to violate you.

Machetekind landdweller pays first. You move forward and introduce your elbow to his, downward and with extreme prejudice. His screams of pain cause the others to back off just enough and just long enough to give you and your semi-self-inflicted wound some breathing space.

"Get that fucker!" one of the trolls shouts as saikind decides to charge you first.

It's his disadvantage, saikind and his goons backed off enough that you can spot them coming and react accordingly. In this case, you duck to catch saikind running toward you,  in the ribcage like a linebacker before flipping him up and over your back. You can hear him landing like a bad Pike Place Market fish throw before turning to the goon wielding brass knuckles.

"...the fuck is that steam, man!? Is he goin' Super Saiyan or something?!" one of them shouts. Whatever it is, it's making your wound burn white hot - which you don't notice from being consumed by unfathomable steam-induced bloodlust.

One of them tries to put his arms around you from behind and get a knifekind at your throat so brassknuckleskind can use you as a punching bag. But your legs are free, so you get brassknuckleskind in his own groin with your boots and make him double over and wonder if he's ever going to fill a pail again.

Then you turn to one of the fences and push yourself up in a way that tips knifekind over right onto the pier and cushions you when you follow, rendering him nice and limp.

Meanwhile, saikind has just started trying to make off with your Michael Kors - which slipped off your arm in the confusion - and the fuck if you're going to fail the test because he brought your shit to Uroboros waiting over on Pier 39 or someshit.

Fortunately, you're right next to one of the saikinds dropped by the goon you flipped over.

You pick it up and give your best attempt at some kind of shurikenkind ninja toss and the poor orangeblood sap gets it in the back of the head...from the butt of the handle. At 30 miles an hour.

You walk over to his body and pick up your precious Michael Kors, which you realize you might now have to incinerate because he landed in a way that the big shiny MK logo on the side got conspicuously scratched. But that isn't the biggest wound on your social life. _That_ award goes to the hideous machete-induced gash across your torso that Skyhorsedad will never ever believe is some kind of "cutting room accident."

Your glance slides from your purse to the spot on your torso where the gash...is already scabbed over. The blood is dried and stained across your stomach and skirt, but the wound itself isn't allowing your innards any chance to escape.

 _That_ , and by _that_ you mean this sudden healing factor, wasn't supposed to happen. But it's better than suddenly finding one half of your body gruesomely detached from the other, horizontally or vertically.

You can dwell on disturbing alternate universe death possibilities later. Right now you're thanking Gl'bolyb that the only damage you've sustained is a ruffled wig and a severely-discounted purse. Speaking of which...

"An' that's for ruinin' my purse," you say before you walk right around and give him a good ground-kick to the groin area. "I don't evven knoww you."

Well, that was entertaining. And Uroboros still hasn't shown up out of nowhere to congratulate you. You figure this is because you still need to do that one last bit of superhero protocol, which, if you recall your knowledge of superhero protocol, _isn't_ putting these landdwelling saps out of their misery.

You turn to leave and pull out your lower-than-top-of-the-line mobile phone to call the cops so Uroboros will notice your adherence to superhero procedure when you notice that one of the troll goons just got up and and pulled out a _MOTHERFUCKING GUN._

 _That's_ what you get for turning your back on the bodies.

"W-whoa! W-what the hell?!" Your phone slips out of your hand and into your purse as if to hide.

NOW shit has gone from Level 5 to Level 99 Japanese Euro Extreme Mode. The arm you haven't broken is fine enough to wield that 9mm pistol like a toy gun.

"You think I'm fucking around, huh?" he shouts, before raising it with a clear intent to fire.

Before your mind can process the fact that you're not in some action movie and he's not going to drone on a few more threats before actually firing, he actually fires and you stumble back onto the planks like you'd just been punched in the gut. You don't feel a sting on you because your thinkpan can still process that your precious Michael Kors and all the stuff inside have taken the bullet for you. But still, holy fuck it's a real gun firing real fucking bullets.

And shit has gone from fine to fucked up in about a second and you realize you left your crosshairs at home tonight because you thought this was going to be a strictly melee test and you're gonna double reacharound die and these suited pricks are gonna dump your nook in the Bay Area and Skyhorsedad will vat-grow another you and there's nothing you can do about it even if you do decide to give the purse that is now scuffed and bullet-riddled.

Not that you don't try to hand it over in some feeble attempt to appease him.

"Here! Take it! Just...don't kill me! Gog!" you whimper, tears seeping out of the sides of your eyes.

"Should'a asked that earlier," he replies before cocking the revolver again. "You're gonna be belly-up in the harbor now, ya' fucking tranny."

You freeze. Your life isn't flashing before your eyes because you're too scared to think.

All you can see is the light.

And apparently, so can he. And it's not coming from between either of you, it's coming from above the big concrete gate.

"Hey, up here!" it's the voice of an angel that's gog-sent even if it's the exact same voice that scared the living shit out of you back in your penthouse condo not two nights back.

You quickly realize he's looking up at the gracefully-clad, muscled and winged figure of Uroboros too, and her ruse is his distaction is all you need to regain your confidence. You make a go at him, and he fires his shot upwards in reflex. With a few deft twists, you dislocate his shoulder and trip him up onto the dock like another bad Pike Place fish catch. He drops his gun as he falls and once he's limp on the dock you make an easy break for it, lobbing it into the Bay.

She lands near you the moment the gun hits the water with a faint 'bloop.' Her wings brush up just enough of a gust of wind that your legs give a little. You lean against the nearest fence, unsure whether it's her intimidating, muscular stature no longer limited by a physical ceiling or the fairly powerful gust of wind combined with your legs giving out a little from the fear.

"I won't make excuses," she begins, surveying the scene almost bashfully, "I apologize for not arriving on time- oh gog, you're hurt!"

You catch yourself on a nearby railing while she literally puts her foot down on the fallen gunman. You can tell she's applying just enough pressure to the base of his spine to keep him from getting up but not crushing him.

"W-well I w-was." you groan between increasingly-heavy breaths, "I can't believe the gunman was your idea."

"...are you insinuating that I set all this up?" she asks, doing her best and barely succeeding to sound accusatory.

"Midnight crew and that green guy..." you huff in some attempt to continue standing up for yourself, pointing out all the moaning and groaning semi-corpses you've left her. "Took em all out for ya, but that fuckin' gun..."

"So you are making the assumption that I would deliberately want to try to kill you to prove your worth?" Now she's starting to sound like she wants to finish what Yellow Hat and these Midnight Crew goons began.

"I'm not accusin' you'a anythin'..." you retort, your breaths becoming labored. "I'm just sayin' I passed your little test."

"What test!? We were going to go on a flying tour of the city's crime spots before sunrise..." she sighs, before rubbing her face with the kind of hand that could crush your head like a tomato. "...but at least we don't have to worry about the combat testing."

Your eyes widen in shock as your thinkpan suddenly remembers that there was a Conclusion #3, and also because she's running a finger down your wound, visibly careful not to let her claw re-open it.

But Conclusion #3 is the fact that maybe you actually did fuck over a bunch of gangland goons and she did just actually save you from ending up another bullet-riddled body in the bay.

"...that's actually kind'a dumb." You suck in your stomach a little out of reflex.

"I'm sorry. I didn't expect them to be here, but I'm thankful that it worked out and-" she moves over to where Yellow Hat fell after you tripped him twice. "Wait...that's a Felt Primary..."

"W-who?"

"The Felt's private collection of supervillains," she explains, her voice getting faster. "All of them had latent superpowers magnified by-"

Before she can explain, and she looks like she could if there were time, both of you are alerted to the sound of sirens. Someone would have to be deaf and blind not to notice the glowing-winged vigilante dropping in to the sound of a very loud gunshot. She quickly rips an entire segment off of one of the chainlink fences and moves over to the collapsed green man.

"There's no time. Come on, we have to abscond," she rapidly replies as she wraps up the lithe Felt Primary in a roll of steel fence links and turns to leave.

She is barely able to turn to fly off when you grab her wrist. "No," you hiss. "You asked me to come out here to be your gog-damn sidekick. So w-when is that gonna happen?!"

"Alcatraz Island. Get to the old lighthouse after the last tour ends. We'll get to it, I promise." With that and a flap of her formidable wings, she effortlessly slips away from your grasp and up into the sky. Your attention is diverted to her soaring away that you don't notice that the sudden updraft briefly exposed your purple designer panties.

You'd rather not wait for the cops to throw you in an overnight cell where the inmates will definitely finish what the Midnight Crew and Felt Primary goon start before Skyhorsedad can get around to bailing you out. You straighten yourself out and break for the main street.

After the longest minute of your life spent inconspicuously fast-walking and hoping the passing SFPD cruiser didn't turn around to catch you, you stumble onto a railing by the streetcar stop in front of Pier 39.

"I...I didn't knoww...I could do that," you sigh to yourself.

You just kicked some serious ass _and_  wastechute and whatever the hell those greenies call their equivalent and now exhaustion has finally decided to stop taking its sweet time and heave itself upon your back. The wound across your gut has completely scabbed over but it feels like some jadeblooded fashion student is continuously trying to chainsaw at it.

You didn't know you could "do that" until you did. And you definitely don't know what's going to happen next.

But you do know that you need to figure out how to stay on Alcatraz Island after closing time.

And as you pull out your cellphone to call a taxi to take you to a drop-off spot conveniently close to your current place, you also know that, well, cellphones can't make calls if there's a 9mm round lodged in their screen.

* * *

_"Callie, you look absolutely exhausted. What happened?"_

_"Embarcadero needed a little help processing the sUspects they foUnd on Pier 43.Took me all night."_

_"I keep telling you, Callie, you don't have to take care of that stuff. You shouldn't keep overextending yourself like this."_

_"It's just paperwork. A little coffee and I shoUld be just dandy."_

_"Just go and get some sleep. It's not like the city's going to burn down again without you."_

**== > FILE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> __  
> Nota bene: Maernt and Brezen are both foreign names of a certain month of the year.


	4. ==> FILE 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You cannot dream yourself into a character. You must hammer and forge yourself one." - Troll Wayne Carter

**Bay Area Supercrime Enforcement District**  
**General Operations Database (BASED-GOD)**  
**SuperCrime Unit - Monitoring (SCU-M) Division**

 **Username: ohpeeec**  
**Password: **********

**== > RETRIEVE DOSSIER/SCU/M/OHPEEE.C**

**Name** : Callie Ohpeee  
**Rank** : Detective, SCU / Lieutenant, SFPD

 **Age** (Y/S): 26 / 12  
**DOS/B** : 11-11-19XX  
**POS/B** : Turlock Federal Spawning Facility, CA  
**Sex** : T-Female / Female Ident

 **Spectrum** (Trolls only): C-4 / Neon

 **Education:**  
  
High School - Mercury High School, Bakersfield, CA - Valedictorian  
College - Dublin Tech, Dublin, CA - BS Criminal Justice, Honors  
SFPD Academy, Honors

**Service Record:**

Patrol Unit Metro Division, Field Operations Bureau - 200X - 200X  
Community Policing Metro Division, Field Operations Bureau - 200X - 201X  
Personal Crimes Division, Investigations Bureau - 201X-201X  
Internal Affairs Division - 201X-201X

Bronze Medal of Valor, 201X  
Meritorious Conduct Award, 200X  
Life Saving Award, 7x (200X, 200X, 201X)  
Police Commission Commendation, 3x

**Evaluation:**

Lt. Ohpeee has demonstrated an exemplary commitment to the service principles of the San Francisco Police Department since her entry from the Academy. Despite her deference to the leadership roles in several high-profile operations, both the Field Operations and Investigation Bureaus have recognized that her contributions to resolving these incidents peaceably are not only necessary but vital. Her ability to consistently perform under the psychological duress has made her an indispensable member of the department.

Her work with the Community Outreach Program has proved invaluable in mending the SFPD's relationship with affected communities following the Angel Island Incident.

However, although she possesses many of the ideal qualities asked of a candidate for the Monitoring Division, she has gone on record as having vocally opposed the SuperCrime Unit and its operational protocol.

Thus, it is the recommendation of the review board that her transfer to SCU be denied in light of organizational changes initiated by the Office of the Governor.

_Amendment: 03-16-1X The review board has agreed to approve the transfer following a personal appeal by SCU commanding officers._

**Transfer Status: APPROVED 03-17-1X by Cmdr. A. Remington, SCU**

**== > EXIT**

* * *

**Port of Oakland**  
**Atlantis Shipping Docks**  
6:23 pm  


It's hot enough to cook you alive out here, the summer late-afternoon heat preserved in the industrial works on this nook-end of the Bay Area.

That isn't stopping you from coming out here in your "standard" outfit, a.k.a. the frumpy one with the cape and the striped pants and the excess jewelry where you are deliberately risking cooking yourself alive just to keep up impressions for the family business. And it's not like you don't enjoy wearing a long, flowing cape that is probably made of some kind of endangered species on the brink of extinction due to some booty-shorts-wearing poacher.

But you are here on business that involves the company you are inextricably anchored to, and you are not quite ready to bring your favorite outfits for business that involves the company you are inextricably anchored to.

The plain gray crate that you watch descend onto the trailer parked underneath one of the dock's many giant cranes bear the gigantic blue and purple logo of Atlantis Industries' shipping arm. The lifeblood of the company's logistics, and the hand that is sprinkling fishfood into the busy aquarium of your new operation. It is the one you've been expecting for some time, having finally completed its journey by sea from Trieste and by truck from New Jersey.

Or at least you hope it is. The perk of being affiliated with the world's largest shipping company is that half the crates in the port bear the zig-zag logo, so you have to go by their serial number on your copy of the manifest sheet.

Once the crate is secured to the trailer, you open up the back and climb right in, toward a large crate that has been further secured against the crate walls. It's big enough to hold a couple of motorcycles, which is a good sign.

You prop open the crate with a deft stroke of the crowbar, your figure concealing its contents from the people waiting outside. You get a convincing-enough look inside to make you grin from fin to fin, before you turn toward the opening to make your proclamation.

"That's the one," you affirm as you climb down from the trailer. "It's goin' to the neww place."

"You know, your brother was down here ordering some stuff for himself too," the shift supervisor remarks as he hands you the required paperwork to sign off on.

You furrow your brow as your fingers work the pen over the paper. The concept of siblings is not exactly a thing that is happening with trolls, but you and Cronus were both vat-grown in the same damn facility to ensure your company had heirs so that had to count for something.

However, you're also pretty sure your "brother" is trying to become some kind of species-bending celebrity down in Vegas. And all species dysphoria aside, you are definitely sure that you have no idea what he would need from the company for his latest attempt at kickstarting a stillborn indie music career.

"W-well I can assure you that he w-won't be usin' it for company business," you harumph. "An' right noww it'd be best for us to keep to our owwn."

"Suit yourself, bud," the supervisor replies casually before he goes back to work and you get back in your limo to take you to 'the new place.'

The car pulls in front of the truck and your new convoy begins its arduous journey across the new Bay Bridge and the tsunami of rush hour traffic. You barely hit the first traffic jam when you're already pulling your cape up and over you like some kind of bad recuperacoon imitation and wishing both your limo and the truck were amphibious like the one owned by Feferi's "sister."

It's hard being an aspiring seadweller superhero and nobody understands.

To be honest, that sometimes includes you.

* * *

 ****Weeks Earlier, But Not Many** **  
**Alcatraz Island**  
8:57 pm  


Staying on the world's most infamous prison island after the last tour ended required a lot of planning and very little effort in its execution. That is, executing it actually required little if any of the convoluted movie-worthy schemes you had intended to use to auto-dodge the tours and their guide. You simply found an empty, disused cell nobody would peek into, several stories up in the old compound as you watched the last tour boat slowly sail away a few minutes after its designated time and several attempts to wait for you.

This left you on the island with nobody but the occasional night guard and the wildlife and, hopefully, Uroboros.

Come to think about it, you are still not sure if being on this island with Uroboros is such a good idea as compared to being alone with the guards and the wildlife.

A brief flicker of light shines from the lighthouse at the south edge of the island, viewable from the cell that you've been "hiding" in. 

You know that's where you're supposed to meet her because that old concrete obelisk hasn't worked since the city decommissioned it and moved its replacement offshore following the Incident. Except for when they made a movie about schemes involving Alcatraz. There's no fence leading around it, and it appears the main door inside has been left slightly ajar, revealing an almost-pitch-black interior.

_Wwelp._

You've come too far to go back, and besides, you're pretty much stuck here until the morning unless you get yourself arrested. And that may or may not be your only way out unless Uroboros flies you out.

You creep back down to the lighthouse and make the trek up the quickly-darkening stairs quite briskly, despite wearing some rather pricey heels and despite all the warnings associated with stairs in derelict buildings, dog.

And this time she's right where she says she is, waving for you once you make it to the top.

Most of the ambient light seems to be absorbed into her giant, green figure once her wings "switch off," which helps in concealing her for whoever else might have noticed the lighthouse suddenly work from ground level. But you can see her just fine up here green, scaly(?) hide and all.

"You made it!" her face metaphorically brightens in her wings' place, before she walks up and gives you a hug.

Call it natural seadweller resilience, but you were expecting it to be a lot more hugbeast-like. It still surprises you though.

"Okay w-well, I suppose w-we havve to get this discussion started then," you say as you straighten yourself out, with about as much interest as you do in returning the hug. "About w-what caused me to kick that much w-wastechute the other night."

"I was hoping you would tell me," she replies. "Unlike our first meeting, it's your turn to give an answer."

"W-why not?" the disbelief is practically graffiti'd all over your face at this point. "W-weren't w-we goin' to find out w-why I suddenly got inspired to be the gog-damn hero?"

"Actually, Eridan, this isn't like the comic books or movies," she explains, turning away for a moment as if to regather her words. "I can't figure that out for you without your help."

"You mean you don't knoww?" you exclaim, stepping back toward the windows. "But you're the most powwerful superhero in the city, I thought you w-were supposed to!"

"All my research and observations cannot properly describe who you are," Uroboros replies matter-of-factly. "You would know the most about your own past and present, and that's what we need to work with for the future."

You were legitimately hoping it would go along with some kind of Hollywood script, but any notion that it would have gone that predictably and admittedly boring path got thrown out the window when she asked you to improvise. All of a sudden you drop your purse - a Gucci to replace your martyred Michael Kors - and let loose.

"I'm a fuckin' seadwweller! I'm the gog-damn heiress to the largest nautical w-weaponsmith in the w-world! I still havve fantasies'a killin' every last landdwweller on the planet!" You're more angry than you are sad, because now you aren't under any pressure to _not_ let fly. You also do not mind the fact you've let a feminine pronoun slip, though that's something you've paid significantly less mind to every time it's happened anyway. "I'm not supposed to be like... _this!_ "

You gesture at your current ensemble. Your beautiful, beautiful outfit. You are decently shocked to blurt out that you don't like it, enough to make your mascara bleed a little.

"But were you happy being who you were supposed to be?" she queries, taking a step toward you in some awkward attempt to be reassuring. "Were you happy trying to be the heir they wanted you to be?"

"No, w-what? I - w-well, I can't say I don't like it but..." you lean against the wall and stare into the empty metal husk of a spotlight that once guided ships to safety. "Look, you w-want to knoww w-what that w-was, that night on the Castro, and the other night at Pier 43, I don't. I just don't."

You think that there's some kind of bullshit song to go along with your dimmed and upside-down reflection in the mirror but you honestly have no time for it.

She smiles. Or at least you think she's smiling. "But that, Eridan, was who you _are_. And that's what we are trying to find out."

"W-what do you mean?" you ask, trying to look her in her glinting green eyes. "This is who I am?"

"You could call it part of being a prince. Or prin _cess_. Whichever you prefer." She gives a soft wave, her tone of voice making it abundantly clear that she is fine either way.

You grin a smirk, letting a brief chuckle escape your teeth before rubbing your face. "Let's go w-with princess. Still lovve bein' royalty."

She sits down on the concrete, taping a finger against her cheek. "The prince or princess is historically regarded as a destroyer," Uroboros continues, her face lighting up in an indication of some kind of revelation. "You were able to channel that power to destroy into something more...constructive." The fact that she mentions 'constructive' seems to infer that there was some kind of alternate timeline shenanigans where you'd released that aspect destructively.

Your smirk becomes a full-fledged shark smile as you sit down across from her. "I guess I really w-wrecked those goons, didn't I," you chuckle slightly.

"But none of that would have been possible at all if you hadn't decided to act," she counters. "And that, ultimately, is the code we have to decipher."

You close your eyes in disappointment. "I w-wish I knew too, I guess I decided to act an' _hoped_ that I w-wouldn't get killed."

All of a sudden it's Uroboros' turn to be shocked. "That's it. Do you remember anything happening to your physical body as you were defeating those henchmen?" 

The most you remember is what that one Midnight Crew member described: "That goon said I w-was gettin' all glowwy an' steamy. An' then evverythin' almost became a blur."

"That's it! Eridan, you have the power of _hope._ "

You sneer almost instantaneously. "Oh come on. I keep an extensivve archivve a superhero powwers an I'm sure hope is just magical bullshit." By extensive archive you actually mean a Bubblr of reblogged superhero observations characterized by element and effects color. It's something Uroboros is probably also aware of besides your personal collection, but she doesn't mind.

"Well for most, hope is confined to the mind, but that doesn't mean it's just wishful thinking," she explains. "You have been blessed to have it manifest in a way that quite literally empowers you."

"But I can't use it...unless I really, genuinely w-want it to happen." In defiance of the established cliche of explanations, you are able to arrive at the same conclusion.

"Yes. You could have run away at the Castro, you could have submitted at Pier 43. Perhaps the pressure of the situation forced your expediency," Uroboros adds. She's excited like the two of you have made some kind of scientific discovery. "But that's part of hope as a power, nudging you to make that leap to take action. Now that you know what you have, it's up to you as to how to use it."

A creepy grin spreads across your face, your fins fluttering a little with excitement.

The first idea you have is Erigami: 4K High Definition Hope-Powered Redux. Oh yes. Hell yes. _Hell fucking yes._  A hope-powered supervillain with the backing of Atlantis' military industrial complex, rallying a league of similarly-superpowered seadweller allies to aid you in your conquest of the Americas, the European Commonwealth, the OCU, subjugating the landdwelling species as you went and...

...and the grin retracts back into a pokerface, the excitement as shortlived as the original idea.

The most obvious reason you are actually deciding against a new incarnation of Erigami is because admitting to San Francisco's current most powerful superhero that you want to revive that concept again will quickly earn its place in the pantheon of your failed plans alongside the violent abortive fiasco that was Erigami's first and hopefully only incarnation.

No, there is actually a justification for siding with the so-called common good that makes more sense without crossing into that "pure heart magical bullshit" territory, quoting you from earlier. 

As a nautical aristrocrat you've always wanted to be feared. But more than that, much more than that, you've wanted respect. Respect from Skyhorsedad, from Atlantis and all its divisions and subsidiaries, and most importantly from yourself. You've slowly been building the latter through your fashion choices, because only in the way you've defied that so-called binary could you look in the mirror and say "damn I look good" and not just "damn I hope they think I look good."

Now you have a way to open the floodgates for your self-esteem to fulfill the standards demanded by everyone else in your life. You're going to earn it by instilling fear into the criminal scum that plague your adoptive city, redeeming yourself from the mistakes of your past. Sure, it means protecting lowbloods and landdwellers and humans and having to face the SCU, who are pretty much the reason Uroboros has cornered San Francisco's superhero market. You've always quietly despised all of them at the least, for their blood color, flesh type and fashion sense.

But you could at least do them the princely courtesy of not letting them know that. You've been on both sides of the media feeding frenzy, one effectively force-fed as a suppository as a result of your unconscionable failure, so you have some idea of how people are going to react.

It's _noblesse oblige_ straight from the pages of that aptly named book of political marksmanship that would make Machia Vellii proud if he were alive 500 years later...which, given his alleged roots in the nautical aristocracy isn't such a far-flung proposition. It's better to be feared than to be loved if you could pick one over the other, but nobody said you couldn't have both.

So if you can engage your Hero Mode while looking damn fabulous all the way, then so much the better.

And then, maybe then, after you've gained all the respect you could from everyone else, maybe Fef will finally respond and probably throw herself at your feet as a damseltroll in distress or something, but you'll get to that when you've done your work.

You stand the fuck up and do your best hands-on-hips superhero pose. You look much more like a damn punk model but fuck that.

"I guess I'm up for this hero thing then oh gog-"

You can't immediately see it from the bandana she wears around her face but the way she suddenly lunges to hug you means she welcomes the idea greatly. Unfortunately you perform a textbook auto-parry and accommodate her hugbeast-thick arms.

"Excellent! Excellent decision!" she squeals, letting you go before she implodes your organ cavity. "We're going to do so well fighting crime together!"

"Did you havve to drag me all the w-way out to Alcatraz for this though?" you ask as you try to straighten yourself out again.

Uroboros shrugs as she stands up too. "Considering what happened the other night, it seemed a bit of a necessity."

"True. W-well I guess I don't mind being flown back..." you reply cheekily as you pick up your purse.

"I don't intend to question the sincerity of that statement, but I have a way for you to get back," is her answer to your request, accompanied by an expectively rough nudge to the shoulder. "Over the course of my adventures I have acquired a few supporters in unexpected places. One of them will arrive shortly to retrieve you."

"And what about you?" you ask frantically.

"As humans and trolls would say," she says, giving a wave as she makes her way to one of the tall open windows of the lighthouse, "It's back to the grind."

"W-wait, so w-when are w-we teamin' up again?"

"When you're all ready. I want you to see what you come up with." You strongly suspect she's smiling that knowing smile from your previous two encounters as she immediately proceeds to fling herself off of the railing. Like last time, you race to where she last stood and look down and exactly like the last time, you don't see anything.

Making your way back down the stairs after collecting yourself is a more tedious affair than your way up, mainly because it's dark as fuck and you only have your backup smartphone - which also replaces its martyred counterpart - to light your way down.

"SuperCrime Unit, anybody there?" is a suspiciously-familiar voice that greets you as soon as you reach the door.

The officer of the law that greets you when you freeze in place and put your hands up doesn't appear to be either SFPD or even one of the SCU deployment troopers. Standing a couple of inches shorter than you, heels included, she's wearing this garishly green tuxedo with a bowtie. And her hair is powder-white under the corkscrew-shaped horns sticking out of her skull. Not that you're not guilty of wanting a different hair color yourself, but it looks like white is her natural hair color.

"Oh! It's okay..." the troll suddenly exclaims, flashing her badge and ID card instead of the pearl-handled revolver she wears on a matching green holster. "I'm Detective Callie Ohpeee, SCU. I was told that someone was unaccounted for on the last tour boat home." She seems to pronounce both long and short 'u's with a little more intensity than normal.

But for one 'U' in particular, the mention of those three letters causes you to freeze though your body convincingly portrays it more as a reaction to a sudden cold breeze that just blew in. The SuperCrime Unit didn't tend to fuck about whenever they had to send someone out.

"Uh...yeah," you stutter as you try to get yourself at ease, "Thought I'd stray off the beaten path tonight."

"Wouldn't be the first," she replies in a casual cheerfulness, before gesturing for you to follow her down back to the dock, where a black rigid-inflatable craft with SCU markings is moored. "Come on, you're not allowed to be here this time of night."

"Might I ask w-what the SCU would be doing here?" you ask once she climbs into the craft.

"The SFPD's been stretched thin as of late," she replies smoothly, offering an arm to help you on board, "So the SCU has some of us do their work on occasion."

"At least it wasn't the drones pickin' me up."

She shrugs it off, and you understand. It's easier for her to shrug off that kind of jab than the association with said drones.

Once the two of you are seated, she starts up the boat, reversing it away from the dock before gunning it into the bay. The rigid-bodied craft is constructed to almost military standard, meaning it at least does a good job of keeping water from splashing into the boat as it crests these waves.

"W-wait, aren't you two the same thing?" you suddenly ask, the question a reflexive result of a sprinkling of sea mist across your face.

"The Governor expanded our jUrisdiction to cover the entire Bay Area over and above the police, and he's looking to expand it statewide." She sounds like she doesn't want to be here, although she won't complain about helping either way.

"After what happened to New York?" you respond. It's bad enough that you're seeing more of those Deployment Units lurking around, now they'll probably be cavity-frisking your fabulous nook at the airport.

Half of the SuperCrime Unit as well as the governor's entire PR department were flown straight to New York to keep "supercriminals" from finishing off what the Dark Star started that fateful day, all on the Governor's personal dime. The mission was a resounding success according to the Governor's Office, though you're not sure whether he measured that success by how many superheroes and assorted wannabes got their faces stomped in or how much he could get the NYPD to allot for their own SCU on their budget.

"Yes. And with another sitUation developing in Los Angeles, yoU coUld say the Governor's getting an itchy trigger finger."

You still don't want to remember Los Angeles. Though sometimes you do have little genocidal fantasies of what would have happened if Erigami panned out or at least went out in some anime-esque blaze of wwhite scientific glory. No better way for a seadweller to go out above land anyway. Right now you put thoughts of situations old and new out of your head, although a brief return trip to whack a few of those "angels" supposedly flying about their namesake city sounds just fuckin' dandy. Apart from the TSA and Deployment Units cavity-frisking your fabulous ass at the airport checkpoints.

You lean against the side of the boat, elbow halfway out. "You knoww, you're soundin' like you don't enjoy w-workin' for them."

"It wasn't my choice to," she replies, continuing to face ahead. "But I woUld rather not talk about that."

You decide to shut your gabber for now rather than get nosy in the drones' business, as familiar as that last remark sounds. But you can't help but notice she has those same green spirals on her cheek as Uroboros does. The notion that maybe that's what she meant by supporters concerns you, like how the Midnight Crew and Felt Syndicate don't just wear the same color, but the same themed clothing.

For the remainder of the trip, you stare out eastward across the Bay at the green, smoldering, smoking island between the Bridges.

Centuries ago, but not many, Angel Island was once the gateway for humans and trolls crossing over to America from the East. But after The Incident it became Ground Zero, a zone of alienation supposedly on permanent lockdown by the SCU. You suspect they might not be doing their jobs well enough if Uroboros allegedly made her lair there right under their sniffers.

Detective Ohpeee drops you off by the Ferry Terminal at the Embarcadero, with nary a wave and a warning not to stay in restricted areas before she speeds back off toward Belvedere or wherever the heck the SCU deploy their drones from. You've been in Planning Mode before she even parked at the dock.

San Francisco wasn't rebuilt in a day. And there are still parts of it that haven't been rebuilt at all.

You'll never rebuild what's lost forever, and it'll take time to build your new personage unlike the instant comic book decisions of old.

This time, you'll do your best to get it right.

Or at least you _hope_  you will.

* * *

 ****Weeks Later, And So On** **  
**8:21 pm**  
**48th & Taraval**

You fell in metaphorical redrom with the place the moment you noticed the entire third story of the house on the corner appeared to be modeled after a submarine.

The property and the ones around it had been in disrepair for a while, a rarity in a city where an intact property at this location was sold at a larger premium than normal.

But you are Eridan Ampora. You have your assigned Atlantis Industries trust fund at your disposal - the exact same trust fund you have avoided using because Skyhorsedad tends to know what's been bought with that account long before you do, and you don't want him finding about your beautiful habits before he does. Fortunately, purchasing a city blockfor yourself is ironically much less suspicious than your binary-defying designer labels.

It would also be suspicious to have your planned persona using your alter-ego's residence as a base, so you then quietly transferred ownership of the house and everything in and around it to some irrelevantly-named holding company you have a majority stake in. For "re-development" purposes.

In any case, expanding the company presence is how heirs are supposed to act. And the act of throwing money around is all that is needed to impress whoever they currently have on the board is watching you. And even though they're not watching you as you pull up in your limo behind the "moving" trailer, you feel the need to at least remind the neighborhood that you're there.

That is, if the CCTV cameras, thick blinds over all the windows and other home security measures you've had installed around the block are any indication.

The wind never seems to stop blowing across Ocean Beach and the Great Highway that runs alongside it. Your cape flutters regally as you make sure every crate gets unloaded from the truck and into the rather spacious garage without any of these worker drones trying to sneak another peek into their contents.

After the unloading finishes, your chauffeur approaches you and requests you return with him to your apartment. You politely turn him down. It surprises him, but he accepts. After all, that's what he's paid to do - and paid not to do.

The chauffeur is the last one to leave, and you watch them all go from the garage. You want to make absolutely sure that the garage as it stands now is the last anybody but you will ever see of it until perhaps it gets destroyed by a vengeful rival. But you can think about plot twists later.

Once you're sure everyone's gone, you withdraw a crowbar from a nearby shelf and proceed to have your way with the crate you took a peek in, which now stands as the centerpiece in the garage.

It's a skeleton of a machine sitting up on a grid to keep it from tipping over, but it's a goddamn beauty. The experimental amphibious jetbike was developed by Atlantis a couple of years ago for some special forces contract with the EC. But the contract fell through after its completed testing due to budgetary wrangling. You've managed to get your hands on the last one before it got disassembled, along with digital copies of its blueprints.

_Typical landdwwellers, they knoww not wwhat they're missing._

Another, slightly smaller crate sits to the side of the area. That one was shipped in separately from Atlantis' "leisure vehicles" division. It contains fairings and other body panels painted just the way you want them to look and scaled up or down to assemble the protective carapace around the jetbike's internals.

You're tensing up as you complete your walkaround. You love all your new equipment. You are --EXCIT--ED as your would-be moirail to get to roll these babies out.

But once you're done, you run up to your new currently-sparsely-furnished "bedroom" because you are especially looking forward to trying on your new superhero digs. Said room currently only contains a (luxury-branded) recuperacoon, body-dryer, a desk with a shockproof company laptop and a large mirror with which you will confirm how awesome you look in your new outfit.

The outfit is something you've designed yourself, in the sketchbooks that now sit above the scrapbooks of wannabe-photojournalist observations.

And in what you can proudly call your most elaborate tactical deception ever, you convinced the company to develop it for your "future matesprit." Granted, Feferi is still currently at the "snowwball's chance in a microwavve" rung on the relationship echeladder but that's neither stopping you nor the actual point right now. You had it delivered to you in a sleek suitcase that Skyhorsedad believed was proper company business.

You kept a businesslike expression on until the moment you open it and the moment the first article of clothing slips onto your body your facial expression just _melts_.

The actual point is that the one-piece made of military-diver-spec fabric fits you like a glove and you feel like you cut through mud even on land. It starts right under the gills on your neck and covers you all the way down to the middle of your thighs. The gloves fit you like, well, gloves. Though they're more like arm protectors, which are a necessity in this line of work.

And oh gog, you don't forget about your boots and their glorious heels, in a subdued neon pink that hides the fact they're made of material made to take and give ass kickings like nobody's business but yours. That's why the heels are shaped like they are - upside-down shark's fins.

All of these are shaded in the finest subtle gradations of your favorite color - violet. Okay, you just had to add one of your personal touches and why wouldn't you show off your favorite color. The only compromise is that for head protection they've sent you a kevlar-reinforced motorcycle helmet that is going to be murder on your ear-fins and facial cosmetics, but that's a sacrifice you'll have to make to avoid being violently unmasked like the last time. At least until you can come up with a face-obscuring tool that won't be murder on your ear-fins and facial cosmetics.

And you still do not want to remember _the last time_. Nope.

Fortunately, you are able to pass this from your mind with a little runway strut in front of the tall mirror, imagining your Crosshairs in your hand because the new and improved version of the real thing's still held up in Charleston due to the restrictive energy weapons laws of the State of California. You also do a few stretches just to make sure it's flexible and chafe-free and you must say you not only look sleek but gogdamn sexy as well.

In fact, you are probably going to start assembling your jetbike and christening it in this outfit. Superheroes never sleep after all - at least until their mortal bodies give up on them. You can't wait to show Uroboros what you've been up to, and what you're hoping to do.

But for now, while you are awake, this is no longer a dream.

You are going to be the hero.

It's you.

**== > FILE END  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: And with that, I apologize for not having a chapter about RMWT!March!Eridan up in time for March. I do solemnly swear that we will be getting to the action very soon.


	5. ==> FILE 5

**== > Be Eridan Ampora, professional superhero.**

**Somewhere near Crocker-Amazon Park**  
11:45 pm  


You are Eridan Ampora, _amateur_ superhero, and you're on your first mission patrolling the streets in your sleek, sexy outfit while riding a premium jetbike you spent the better part of the last two weeks tuning up.

"Please gog..." you mutter with a clenched jaw, "Please w-work...don't do this to me..."

You are also cornered in an alley and about to be gunned down with extreme prejudice by members of the SCU's Deployment Teams.

 _Wwelp_.

You'd reflect on how this night out spiraled into the loadgaper like so much landdweller waste but you're currently seething in frustration hoping that you might find some miraculous way out of your imminent demise.

* * *

 

**== > So how did it spiral into the loadgaper like this?**

**Beverly Hills, California  
Years Earlier, perhaps too many...**

You are Eridan Ampora and you're sniveling on your hands and knees in the vast backyard of your "family" estate, having been bucked off of your lusus more than you'd prefer to count in this session of finicuffs. Your regal clothes, already weighing down on you with perspiration and dirt, are starting to get tattered from repeated encounters with the gravel and dirt, and you can see the scuffs and scratches underneath.

Skyhorsedad hovers in mocking calm a few meters away, expressing his stern, fatherly disappointment in his "second" charge's inability to take charge and conquer like a seadweller should. Emphasis on _second_. He's already convinced you that magic isn't real, and that boy trolls should be more interested in boy troll things like science and military history and whatnot so they can grow up to be the kind of seadweller that will take Atlantis Industries to new, globe-conquering heights.

He gives you an un-gentle nudge with his tail and demands you try again. You object as much as your whimpering self will allow, and in turn you get an even more un-gentle nudge and a harsher demand to try again, followed by you slowly getting back up to your feet. And another un-gentle nudge for you to mount your lusus again for another degrading rodeo.

And you will, and you do until you're damned near unconscious and he leaves you there until you drag yourself back into the house for a dinner that's gotten cold under the ambience of your older "spawn sibling" trying to be some kind of one-man independent music label. Until you ablute yourself of the dirt that festers in your wounds, go back to your room where another tin paintable toy soldier can be found on your desk as some kind of fatherly "cheering up" gesture, and then simmer in your recuperacoon until academy starts the next morning, until you get out and start a similar process again.

It's what you're supposed to do if you ever want to be great.

Or at least be  _somebody known for something._

**== > Okay, that's a little bit too far into the past, right?**

**Years later, and about a week before...**

You are still Eridan Ampora and you are moaning and groaning as you lay curled up and nursing your aching joins in a corner of a cardboard-box-and-tire makeshift obstacle course that runs around the "combined" backyards of the city block you have made into your not-so-secret lair.

You're not in your suit, you're in one of your Brezen Maernt outfits complete with safety pads and fuck it's cold because the fog is taking more than its sweet time to lift its fluffy gray nook off of the Bay Area this morning.

Your jetbike hovers in mocking calm a few meters away, awkwardly leaning against a nearby wall. It's moments like these that you probably wish you hadn't ordered its cowling to look suspiciously like Skyhorsedad.

You really honestly thought that learning to ride a jetbike was like learning how to ride, well, a landdweller two wheel device.

And you were, sadly, right.

This is going to take a while.

* * *

  **== > Back to the present then.**

 **Braj Stop, Candlestick Park Developments**  
**11:20 pm  
**

You are now the night manager of a local Braj Stop and you are unconscious and curled up by a corner of the store's infamous ball pit next to your quivering and sobbing night cashier.

As this is a typical Braj Stop, the ball pit is really just a large rectangular concrete enclosure carved into the floor without any actual plastic balls in them. These dudebros love dumping their little siblings and babysat kids there to stew while they fight over the latest snacks, hats, soft drinks and apple juice, Xbox video games, and hand-to-hand combat weapons.

Now as this is, again, a typical Braj Stop, you normally have the means to defend yourself in case these typical brofrontations get too hairy. Pepper spray, a hotline to Microsoft for swift and permanent console banning, even melee-protective armor courtesy of the higher-ups at the Strider Media Group. These happen so frequently that not only are you sure you know how to deal with these incidents, you are also convinced that Strider Media deliberately fosters this kind of culture because they can. But they pay you well, so you can't complain as much as your staff do anyway.

Yet despite all these precautions and contingencies you are _not_ prepared to handle two burly and totally non-bro armed robbers that show up at your register, one with a shotgun and one with a pistol. Said robbers forced you to open the vault and empty it out before your closing cashier pulled the alarm out of instinct (waiting until it's safe be damned), causing them to pistol-whip the two of you and dump you where the little siblings and babysat kids would stew while they made off with their sweet loot.

If you weren't unconscious you'd complain that you weren't paid enough for this.

* * *

  **== > Is that it?**

No, because you are now the robbers.

The two of you - a human and an oliveblood troll in your mid 20s - are fairly new to the world of break-ins and stick-em-ups. You've held up a couple of easy 24-hour convenience stores on the East Bay where pickings are frequent but thin with all these new advances in vault technology and fewer cops spread even thinner. At least there you could get away before the cops showed up and recorded the owners complaints into paperwork that would never be acted on.

The Braj Stop in the developments that were once Candlestick Park seemed like an easy-enough target too. They're barely manned at night apart from the occasional dudebro picking up some munchies after a hard night's worth of MLG-wannabe 360 noscoping. You even got the timing mostly right. There was a big-name FPS launch the day before so their vault is stuffed full of preorder DLC codes that you can sell for more than they'll be sold for when they're eventually made available for the plebs a few months down the road. Oh, and the cash too. You're going to need the cash.

The only thing is that you figured the only security around are the rent-a-cops who lurk around in their glorified golf carts in a semi-awake state. You failed to account for the fact that this brand new development has _brand new_ security. Or rather, brand-new as in rent-a-cops who are actually awake this time of night and radioed your vehicle's details into the real cops.

Five minutes later they've got your make, model and plates and now you have a single cruiser on  your asses with its sirens blaring as you head north toward Glen Park and waking quite a few residents from theirs slumber.

Your late-model sport compact is capable enough even in the hands of a wannabe movie star to elude it, but what you're most worried about is backup.

"Did you just hear a dolphin just now?" you, i.e. the human riding shotgun, ask your troll partner in crime.

"Fuck if I know, I'm just trying to lose the fucking cop!" you, i.e. the troll driving the getaway car, snap back at your partner before noticing his eyes almost bugging out. "What the hell-"

You face the other direction to find that your partner's eyes were bugging out because some biker in an androgynous sleek purple outfit is knocking on your window and somehow keeping pace.

It shocks you enough to grab the wheel and try to ram him, but your excessive arm motions tip him off and he jams the brakes and drops back behind you. He does it smoothly enough for you to notice that there's something mounted on the front cowling.

"Is that a fucking harpoon cannon?!" driver-you exclaims, before your right arm begins fumbling around the cupholders for your pistol. "This fucker's crazy!"

Both of you are, of course, about to find out how crazy this fucker is.

* * *

**== > Can you be Eridan again? And stop with the timejumping, what is this, some kind of bullshit webcomic?**

**Seconds earlier, but not too many...**

You are Eridan Ampora and in about 1 minute you will become 'the backup.' It's ass o'clock at night and you're savoring the view from atop Glen Canyon Park, leaning forward on your jetbike as its stabilizers do their job of making sure you don't hover over the edge by accident.

Right now, you are thoroughly enjoying the fruits of your seadweller labor. The jetbike handles as good as any landdweller motorized two wheel device, or at least it does now after you found the command to make the thrusters work like an actual landdweller motorized two wheel device after several consecutive hours of thinking it was some kind of awesome sea-skirting device. That, of course, occurred after you accidentally activated its amphibious mode, which landed the jetbike squarely on its bottom with a hard, metallic clank.

In a way, and not the blatantly obvious skyhorse-inspired cowling, the experience vaguely reminds you of the rides your lusus let you take on his back as a child when you imagined yourself riding into battle like the conquerors of old.

Yes, that included getting bucked off several times because your first fighting lessons involved you "taming" your lusus. Can't be a good corporate seadweller prince without learning to defend yourself in any situation, whether in battle or in the boardroom, right? But after countless tries over many months, and endless bouts of humiliation in which you were frequently and unfavorably compared to your older spawn sibling, you mustered enough whiny princely rage to take Skyhorsedad down a peg.

You'd still agree that it was worth the cost to be where you are today, that cost being your mental state, leading to those fateful events in Los Angeles and making it harder to deal with the gender dysphoria you've had to closet for a long time to conform to corporate societal norms. Right now you're managing to neatly stuff it into your 'regular' Eridan, Brezen Maernt and your as-yet-unnamed superhero personages, though you've taken care to heed the famous words of Troll Lil Wayne: "Living a double life is easy. It's the triple and quadruple lives that get you in the end."

The satisfaction of conquering what you once thought insurmountable is something you'll never forget as you turn around and begin cruising downhill and just above the street limit with a smug smile on your face, the wind almost whistling around your custom helmet. You climbed that entire mountain and you became a better person for it. At least not counting what happened with Erigami.

You do however hope that the curiously dolphin-like noises that your jetbike makes when it accelerates from a standstill don't become as unforgettable though. Truth be told it's not exactly satisfying, but you'll find some way to fix it before it becomes irrevocably attached to your new superhero persona along with your jetbike's customized cowling and the heels on your suit.

_"5-Bravo-7, I'm in a code 3 chase with 211 suspect heading westbound toward Crocker-Amazon park, please advise."_

You immediately activate the GPS display on your jetbike. There's a small error message indicating that it can't connect to your secure server at home to activate the navigation, but you let it slide because you were so excited to take your baby on a test drive that you decided to let the files download from the company server _while_ you were out. At least the maps and police scanner are working.

Crocker-Amazon Park is only a couple of blocks away and there's a single unit marked on your scanner moving quite fast.

Your face shoots into a grin. "It's go-time, landdw-weller scum..." you growl as you shift the jetbike into 'fast gear.'

You can catch split-second glimpses of the SFPD cruiser's blinkers in between trying not to sideswipe a parked car or get T-boned at an intersection. But you also chose this street to pick up speed because it merges with that same street a couple of blocks ahead, allowing you to seamlessly merge with the only moving traffic in a 10 block radius.

_"5-Bravo-7 to dispatch, someone's trying to interfere in the chase. Possible supercriminal!"_

Now that you've properly introduced yourself to the authorities, it's time to introduce yourself to the scum they're trying to catch. You're traveling fast enough to keep up, and you inch up on the accelerator handle to get the jetbike to cruise up to the driver's side door of that pitiful looking sport compact.

Knocking on their window gives a disproportionate yet expected response. You jam the brakes a little when they try to sideswipe you, the jetbike narrowly evading as you drop back.

There is a damning couple of seconds of radio silence before the dispatcher responds. _"Can you give a description?"_

And less than that before things ratchet up a notch on the echeladder. _"White custom jetbike with, uh...dark trim. Rider has fin-themed outfit and- shots fired!"_

You didn't need the police radio to tell you about the one goon sticking his arm out of the passenger window and firing at you. Good thing bullets fired in a panicked state by flailing arms are easy enough to dodge - in your jetbike anyway - though facing actual gunfire did send that little jolt up your spinal column to keep you at attention. The radio would tell you if the stodgy cruiser behind you got hit, which it hasn't yet.

As an added benefit, it's also given you justification to activate your jetbike's most important feature: your Crosshairs wired to an automated mount. A couple of taps on your jetbike's console causes the turret to unlock itself, and the energy rifle perks its tip up like a barkfiend catching its first scent of fresh meat. As the chase sweeps around a long curve you switch to a chase camera and program the Crosshairs to aim just behind the rear tires where the fuel tank would normally be. If you're going to reintroduce yourself to the world of heroes and villains, you might as well do it with someone going out in a bang, not a whimper.

_"Dispatch to all units. Requesting assistance to a Code 3 chase, reports of potential supercriminal activity along Geneva Avenue near Crocker-Amazon Park. Shots have been fired, suspects are armed and dangerous."_

But the bullets whizzing past your head or a missed shot aren't nearly your biggest concern. And it's not just because their poor aim is already exacerbated by the fact they're just taking pot-shots out of a moving vehicle. Or because the whole idea of a massive car gas tank explosion was a myth whose debunking you sort of regret.

_"5-Bravo-7, this is SCU Deployment Rapid-2-Epsilon, we're in the vicinity. Give us a description."_

This is your first night out and you're about to get some Scuds dry-shoved up your nook. Forget toying with them, you might just want to end this now with some extreme prejudice before the Scuds do the same to you.

_"Suspected supercriminal is pursuing a silver Kamata coupe matching the description from the reported 211 at Candlestick Braj Stop earlier tonight."_

Another few seconds as the perps turn onto the main road and try to gain some distance on the two of you through speed. You scientifically deduce that while it makes a smaller target, it also separates them from whatever might be nearby.

_"Copy that. Rapid-2-Epsilon en route, ETA 30 seconds."_

Your console blinks red to indicate a weapon lock, and you grin thirstily as you tell it to fire. Time to end this.

_"Energy weapon fired! Repeat, energy weapon discharge, looks like it took out a streetlight."_

Okay, so the auto-aiming system does need work. A lot of work. More work than the streetlight sheared off at its foundation by a flawless beam of white science while missing the suspect's car completely.

Screw that, you'll know better than to rely on it. You were trained in the classical art of energy weapon firing while on your precious lusus/steed, you can just move the gun on its mount and do it your-own-damn-self.

You round a corner at 30 miles an hour following the cruiser and their suspects and your left arm catches the Crosshairs as the centripetal force swings the rifle stock into your hand. The GPS shows another red dot closing in on you and your prey and you know you only have that much time to bring this chase to an end before you get caught in another escalation.

You lean forward a little to give the Crosshairs a little extra support because you also have even less time before they turn another corner and you need to reset your hand-eye coordination.

This time, you hit your mark, and boy does it show. The compact's left rear wheel practically disintegrates into shrapnel and the goons inside have no idea how to steer in response. They barely make it past the next stoplight before their car auto-parries a parked SUV twice its size.

_"10-50, 10-50. This is 5-Bravo-7, suspect's wrecked. Send EMTs."_

_"Dispatch to 5-Bravo-7, paramedics are en route. Secure the perimeter. Rapid-2-Epsilon you have been cleared to use defensive maneuvering. You are not cleared to return fire."_

With those goons not getting out for a while, and the "regular" cops tending to their new bounty, that only leaves leaves the goons behind you. Goons with a much bigger budget than two petty crooks robbing the Braj Stop. Goons chasing you in a sleek coupe with an ominous red-only LED siren and don't make "Stop your car!" announcements before trying to ram you off the road. Caution be damned, your new priority is to abscond and hope your jetbike can outrun and outmaneuver them.

You immediately scratch off the 'outrun' option when the SCU coupe gives your jetbike an unfriendly nudge on the exhaust port. The jolt it sends right up your spinal column almost causes you to swerve out of control, your rookie reflexes fortunately saved by the presence of a wide intersection for you to continue on your way.

You gun the propulsion system and head westward. Or at least that's where your compass is heading because you probably should have waited for your navigation software to download before you left, you dumpass. For now, there's a couple of shortcuts up ahead that you hypothesize you can lose those Scud goons in.

"Jegus fu-!"

You gun the reverse thrusters and airbrakes at full blast and swerve to the side because that scientific hypothesis is swiftly debunked by the presence of a chain link fence where an empty alleyway should be. You could try carving through it with your energy weapon, but will take time that the SuperCrime Unit never gives.

_"Rapid-2-Epsilon to Monitoring. We have the suspect cornered off Church Street. Requesting further instructions."_

Time you don't have as you swerve your jetbike around to find yourself facing an all-black sport coupe with roof-embedded red blinkers and SCU written in block letters to let you know that this chase might not be the only thing ending tonight. You throttle back a little, stopping only when the exhaust pipes tap the fence behind you.

_"Monitoring to Rapid-2-Epsilon, you have permission to subdue the suspect. Neutralize if necessary."_

"Oh gog no. Please gog no." Your helmet feels like it's suffocating you as you hear them receiving the order to cull you like  _you're_ the landdweller scum. Your pusher is trying to pound its way out of your chest, your Crosshairs slumps forward on its mount like a barkfiend about to be put down with its master.

_"Copy that, Monitoring. Moving to subdue."_

You can feel your suit so soaked through with sweat that you could probably slip off your jetbike's seat right now. You can barely see more than the silhouettes of the two fully-armored Deployment Unit agents that step out of the vehicle like black, shadowy humanoid angel hybrids, with HIGH-POWERED PROTOTYPE ASSAULT RIFLES WITH UNDERSLUNG GRENADE LAUNCHERS(!) obviously set to "neutralize."

Your name is Eridan Ampora and as you give your jetbike's dashboard a frustrated bash with your fist you wish it didn't have to end with your company passing your unmasked, bleeding and most importantly humiliated carcass over for another vatgrown heir to the fortune while the SCU scrapes it off the pavement and shovels it into the coroner's office.

* * *

**== > Scrape up that carcass.**

**10 Seconds Earlier**

"Copy that, Monitoring. Moving to subdue," you communicate with a burst of confidence. "Okay, I think we can take him. You ready, Kowalski?"

"Phasers set to frag Eddie, tonight we're gonna get up on that Wall!"

You are Sergeant Eddie Villa and this is probably the most excited you've been since you joined up from the SJPD as you prepare to step out of your Deployment Team-issue cruiser and notch your first supercriminal takedown.

The Bay Area hasn't really had much of a superhero or supervillain scene at all since the SCU put their foot down decades ago. There have been a few wannabes, but those didn't pan out after they ended up in The Veil for a few months for gross violations of the Angel Island Act. And of course there were Cacoethes and the Debonair Corsair, both of whom were viciously neutralized not too long before you joined up during the unit's Vast Expansion Initiative. There's still Uroboros, but for some reason Commander "A.R." (as he prefers to be called) can't seem to spare enough resources to make a Uroboros Unit now that the SCU's spreading across California. No wait, SCU-UU sounds pretty stupid. How high do they even have to be to be called UU?

So you take what action you can get these days. Occasionally you have to deal with the Felt Primary when they cause a bit of a ruckus, but their mysterious lawyer is always there to phone in and post their copious bail. Why they haven't been neutralized is still beyond you. Must be the Governor doing his schtick every now and then to respect human rights, although given how much that strange green substance has altered the ex-lifeforms that now make up the Felt you could legally say they're not human anymore.

"Kowalski. Let's move in slow. I'll go left, you take the right," you say, keeping your laser sight aimed squarely at what you hope is his bodily center of mass. "He moves that harpoon cannon an inch, don't hesitate to pull the trigger."

It's a motherfucking miracle that you got called first dibs on this weird-looking wannabe. And if you can bag him, that's not only your names up on the Wall of real heroes back at Tiburon Station, but an extra stripe on your rank markers for your trouble.

"Roger that. HQ, we're closing in on suspect. Looks like he's about ready to give up."

You barely get a couple of feet away from your car when the actual motherfucking miracles happen. The jetbike suddenly powers up with a noise vaguely similar to a dolphin and then-

"SONOFA-"

You drop to the ground out of reflex as the jetbike powers between the both of you and ramps off the car, leaving a sizable dent on the hood as it flies off across the street into the nearby park.

You have no idea how that just happened, but you shake your head in disbelief and slam your fist against the nearby wall knowing that your promotion opportunity just whizzed away like it just did.

* * *

**== > Motherfucking miracles.**

You are Eridan Ampora again and _that's_ what the fuck just happened.

 _That_ specifically being your jetbike's GPS drawing a white line of satellite-assisted science all the way back to your hideout, dynamically fluctuating with every police and SCU car in the vicinity. This was then followed by you gunning it the fuck past the two Scuds, pulling up and jumping their subtly-ramp-angled coupe into the park ahead of you.

_"Rapid-2-Epsilon to Dispatch, suspect just evaded us! Damage to vehicle!"_

_"...copy Rapid-2-Epsilon."_ Their dispatch officer barely fails to hide her disbelief, and you fail at hiding your laughter as you speed through the park.

_"Suspect is on a jetbike that makes dolphin noises when it accelerates."_

You also fail at hiding your subsequent disbelief that you - as an albeit disguised seadweller - will come to be associated with a squealing mammal thanks to your otherwise formidable vehicle of choice, killing your laughter until you've crossed over to the other edge of the park with the cops in your dust.

* * *

Ten minutes of navigation-system-guided cruising later you ease the jetbike into your garage on the other side of this great city-and-county and slide the kickstand down with your heels, allowing it to ease down onto them once you deactivate its propulsion systems and shut it down. You slowly dismount from it, take off your helmet and give it an inspection under the somewhat dim compact fluorescents that light this garage.

She's got her first battle scars and scuffs. Your first instinct is to have them buffed out, but they don't look too conspicuous yet. It's not like it'll affect her resale value if she had any.

It's then you realize you're exhausted enough that you've assigned a gender to a machine like it's a living, sentient being, and decide to finally call it a night before you start worrying about your helmet hair.

You plunk your helmet on the work bench and instinctively trudge upstairs when you feel your adrenaline once again giving way to exhaustion. The silence that permeates this otherwise unused complex allows you to hear your pusher still thumping madly in your chest and it's a wonder that you didn't have that strange glow you had when you . Your hands are already working at your suit and unfastening your bracers and boots, like you're shedding an unused layer of skin. You can smell your body odor as it is finally released from its containment and it causes you to cringe, but it also reminds you that you're alive and at your headquarters instead of bagged and tagged and unclaimed in some morgue.

When you reach your bed you feel like you could simply fall into two pieces and just bleed into the fabric.

You flop down on the bed like the wet fishy that you are in your skin-tight briefs, reaching for a pillow and pressing it against your face before sprawling yourself across the mattress. One day you'll get a proper recuperacoon for this place so you won't have to use the ablution trap in the morning like some kind of landdweller. But right now, recuperacoons are a luxury compared to the blessings you're counting.

It was a close shave, but you're thankful to the Furthest Ring that the tracking server activated just in time. And you didn't end up dead or worse, humiliated and unmasked before.

You'd think Uroboros would be impressed with what you've rustled up in such a short span, wherever she is now, but you'll also worry about what else she might require after you get that recuperacoon for your place.

More than that, you hope that somehow, when you get famous enough, you can get your lusus to understand and be proud of you. Why, you could just imagine him giving a stern, fatherly nicker of approval right now as your consciousness slips off into the dreambubbles as the waves wash up against Ocean Beach...

* * *

  **== > Skyhorsedad: Give stern, fatherly nicker of approval.**

You are Skyhorsedad and you are proud of your son.

To most people, a rich seadweller buying up a city block or funding some development for their residence is little more than tabloid fodder. To you, it's your charge finally leaving the proverbial chirpbeast nest and building his land in the business empire himself away from the properties he gets almost as a stipend. Granted, it's not exactly a sprawling industrial complex or glittering skyscraper but with the property prices in this city continuing to skyrocket you could hardly fault your charge for picking worse.

Speaking of choices he could do better, he's got himself a personal vehicle. A fixer-upper, technically speaking, but it's still a prototype jetbike for a cancelled military contract. You couldn't possibly imagine your charge settling for any lesser kind of landdweller vehicle except for a seven-digit sports car that has to be custom ordered from a handmade garage deep in the EC. And not only did he take its repairs into his own prongs like a steadfast prince should, he even had it dressed up to vaguely resemble you. Imitation really is the most sincere form of flattery.

You knew all this because as his guardian you have full access to your son's purchase history as well as the company's "inventory" as the personal caretaker of its future executives. You are, in fact, absolutely certain that he's been learning his lesson and becoming a proper heir to the corporate throne since his quasi-exile from Los Angeles and not becoming some kind of gender-binary-defying costumed lunatic that's likely to get himself shot.

It's not like he's been buying specifically to set up for some kind of frivolous personal venture that would totally pour the concrete boots on his and the company's reputation if they were ever made public.

So you figured while he was out finally getting around to that "company business" he never seems to inform you about since he actually move out, you could do the lusus-ly thing and float yourself inside while he was out, and help clean up some of the stuff he moved in.

You noticed some of the computers weren't working, because apparently some of the software had been downloaded but not set up. So you went through the manuals he had lying around and decided to finish what he started. You knew you were doing something right when the rest of the screens lit up and no smoke came out. Satellite maps of the city, electronic blueprints for Atlantis Industries weapons technology, late night informercials, and what looks like the first-person view of some high-octane indie action flick that involved jumping over dystopian sports cars that clearly aren't the ones used by the SCU.

You know how much your charge loves his high-octane action flicks and military epics. Though you'd prefer that last screen be filled with business news rather than something that distracting. You make a reminder to get him a subscription to the cable company, and that you'll come over to help him work on the other screens when you get some free time.

You were busy resetting the knocked-over props on the obstacle course when you heard a garage door open and close. You wondered if somebody else resided in the compound, quietly shadowing them from across the building they entered as you heard footsteps and someone apparently falling into bed.

You deduce this place is secure enough that there's only one person that could do that long before you reach his bedroom door.

The door's ajar enough for you to peek inside and see what he's been up to. In this case, he's sleeping in his undies. You immediately recoil because you'd rather not wake him up right now, after all a good seadweller needs their 11 1/2 hours of non-recuperacoon slumber.

You nicker in a stern, fatherly, yet somewhat silent approval of what you've found before you quietly float out of the nearest doorway and back toward his previous residence to catch some shuteye yourself. A lusus' work is really never done, so you have to take some rest yourself where you can make it.

But tonight, you're proud of your charge.

You've already left him a little note on the computer stating just as much. He'll be so happy to see it, you're sure of it.

* * *

**Bay Area Special Enforcement District  
General Operations Database (BASED-GOD)  
SuperCrime Unit - Monitoring Division **(SCU-M)**  
**

**== > RETRIEVE DAUPHINE/NEWDESC**

**Name:** Dauphine

 **Description:** Approx' 5'11-6'1 with androgynous, slightly muscular figure. Wears purple bodysuit and helmet, possibly troll due to helmet ridges? Vehicle is a custom jetbike with ostentatious white front cowling.

 **Bio:** Dauphine is the provisional code name given to an alleged supercriminal that engaged SFPD and Deployment Team units at approximately 0000 hrs. on XX-XX-XXXX. Delphine intervened in a Code 3 chase involving armed robbery suspects and disabled their vehicle with an energy weapon.

Dauphine codename is derived from the acceleration sound of the jetbike.

**== > RETRIEVE DAUPHINE/SCUTTLE**

**SCU Threat-Target Level: Low-Medium/Provisional**

**Recommendation:** Exercise extreme caution if Delphine is encountered. Detailed evaluation and profile to be updated before SCUTTLE rating can be finalized.

**== > EXIT**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. This is what happens when I have 6 ideas to work on at once. :( I know I can do better at the action scenes though...


	6. ==> FILE 6

**Caffe Umbra**  
**Seattle, WA**

**Years Ago**

Christmas used to be in the air, but winter festivities in Seattle don't end until playoffs are over for the **"BEST TEAM IN THE GAME,"** quote unquote, emphasis and caps intended. Not that you care because even though Los Angeles had only gotten their professional football team back, American professional sports in general are just circuses of landdweller simplicity (and in the case of American football, brutality). You're more of a skyhorse polo person, but that's for another side story.

You're on the wastechute end of your last winter break before college starts and the company (read Skyhorsedad) decided to treat you to a five-star hotel stay in a city with a more maritime-oriented culture after your graduation (with _honors_ , you make sure to emphasize) from P.J. Gilroy Academy. And that was great until you found yourself in a part of town in which gentrification was built _around_ the rehab facilities and shelters than _over_ it. Which meant the local creepers would soon be out in force around even the most well-lit areas of Occidental Park.

It was a good thing that this particular coffee shop was open late, a nice quaint place that clearly had _some_ significance in the lives of early 20th century sailors before it fell into disrepair in the city's economic slump and then coopted into a trendy establishment going for that nostalgic feel like every coffee shop in this town _not_ called Starbucks or Seattle's Best during the Great 1990s Coffee Rush. Exotic boutique coffee being your specialty, you decide you might as well fill up with a little caffeinated courage before you call your black cab back to your hotel by the Convention Center.

Your favorite scarf is wrapped around your neck as you walk up to the counter, and it keeps you warm like the love of a Macklemore song although you sometimes wonder whether if it's worth the tradeoff that its fibers may or may not have damaged your gills over time.

You withdraw a handkerchief from your pocket and wipe the condensation off your glasses before you explain your order to the barista, a veritable scientist's brew of various proportions, shots, and mixtures that could otherwise be that of a wizard or witch if magic was real. Which it isn't, you assert to yourself almost hourly.

At least she's paying attention, which couldn't be said for you because something else has caught your eye.

Seated by the far corner of the establishment are two individuals, one troll and one human, apparently engaged in some kind of intimate conversation. This would not be anywhere near out of place in an establishment like this if the two weren't wearing what are clearly superhero costumes.

You are already putting two and two together in a purely mathematical and logical fashion as your eyes immediately deduce the identities of the troll in black-and-red and the human in dark-gray-and-blue.

Heir. _And_ Hemogoblin.

The two most popular superheroes in the SeaTac Metropolitan Area are having coffee together and nobody else seems to give more than a casual glance at them, like they're both cosplayers at some convention. And the conventions are still months away.

"Excuse me, who am I making this coffee for?"

The barista snaps you back to attention, her voice with half a shot of annoyance. You apologize in a huff and introduce yourself as "Ampora," to which she reverts back to being cheerful and tells you it'll be up shortly.

You take a seat for yourself on a stool by a bar mounted up against the window, moisture fogging up on the inside, and begin to watch intently at whatever conversation they're having.

Neither of the other folks in this establishment have been educated in the truest sciences of superhero spotting. You've done enough research (that is, you've got folders upon folders of downloaded fan material) to know exactly what they look like, down to what color Heir's goggles are and the shape of Hemogoblin's obviously fake horns.

Superheroes and supervillains have fascinated you precisely because their abilities seem to somehow elude the grasp of even the most respected of scientists. So you've made it your mission to observe them and what makes them tick, what makes them do what they do and more importantly, how they do it.

It's _totally_ not because you want to go into the superhero-slash-supervillain trade yourself, even though you've got a maritime defense contractor's weapons arsenal and a number of Rodeo Drive's formal fashion houses at your beck and call. And it's most definitely not because you want to finally bring your dreams of subjugating the landdwellers into reality. Nope.

Speaking of research, it doesn't look like they don't notice you either. Or at least any more than the other curious onlookers. That's good. Blowing their cover would be _entirely disrespectful_ , letting everyone in this establishment know who's having coffee in their midst.

Instead, you take your coffee in one hand, whip out your smartphone in another, and using your power to _not_ look like you're actively watching them you let _everyone else in the world_ know with the superpower of social media presence.

* * *

**48th & Taraval Compound  
** **San Francisco, CA  
** **Present Day**  
**1314 hrs.**

Sweat is streaming down your forehead. You're only in your underwear and some flip-flops but you feel like you might as well be seasoned, breaded and wrapped in aluminum foil in an oven with the machinery slow-cooking you from the outside while your bodily heat is ensuring there's no pink left in your purple internals.

You are Eridan Ampora and you have never been so scared in your entire life. Never in the many instances you were threatened to be disowned on a daily basis for not living up to your company-slash-family's expectations. Not when you were being beaten down and humiliated by your lusus or in front of a global internet audience. Not even when that Midnight Crew chump was about to vaporize your thinkpan with a bullet. Never, ever this scared.

The news would normally be a good enough reason for you to feel scared, even if it's background noise getting priority audio privileges on your array of monitors.

"Is there a new supercriminal on the loose? Glen Park residents got a bit of a rude awakening last night when a police chase received some unexpected intervention. Kirk Baxter has the report from Candlestick Park, where last night's events began."

And you aren't scared because your new reputation precedes you, that you now know that attempting to be a superhero in this town means a highly-armed state-sponsored paramilitary is required to hunt your nook down with the most extreme of prejudices and present your corpse to the media for publicity. Hell, you aren't even scared because your jetbike's dolphin noises are now what they're remembering you for.

_"Last night's cascade of events began here at Candlestick when two suspects in facemasks are caught on camera robbing the Braj Stop, incapacitating the manager and a night shift employee. The suspects' getaway vehicle was identified by security and an SFPD unit was dispatched to help."_

About fifteen minutes ago you awoke and went downstairs to get some frozen breakfast out of the fridge only to be lured to the noise of the computers you somehow left on all night.

_"But that's when things began to escalate, according to this video released by the SFPD."_

You immediately became suspicious when you realized you hadn't turned them all on yourself. You then got scared almost gaperless when you found the reason laying on the central console.

_"A mysterious vehicle suddenly appears and disables the suspect's vehicle with an energy weapon before being chased off by a SCU patrol."_

It could have been any kind of note, maybe a post-it reminder for you to fix up something you forgot to fix last night before your patrol. Might have been a cliche'd ransom note for your next big act of heroics. No, it had to be this one.

_"The two suspects were recovered and are currently in stable condition at Pacific Hospital awaiting charges. Both employees are also expected to make a full recovery. The SCU is still searching for the mystery rider."_

Someone left a hand(fin?)written note on the main keyboard in stern, fatherly lettering. And you can only put a name to one entity other than maybe Uroboros that could give this to you right at the info-pusher of your inner sanctum.

_"The Bay Area Supercriminal Enforcement District has issued a SCUTTLE alert this morning for an alleged supercriminal under the codename Dauphine. Derived from the French term from dolphin, the name refers to the dolphin-like noises made by the alleged supercriminal's getaway vehicle, described as an extravagant white jetbike."_

Skyhorsedad not only infiltrated your compound, but he now knows who you are and what you do in your spare time. You inwardly curse yourself and outwardly curse at yourself for being so stupid buying up a compound that you know would show up on an account your lusus pays attention to.

_"The SFPD is currently asking residents with any further information on Dauphine to call the SCU's reporting hotline. Back to you in the studio, Elizabeth."_

_"Thank you, Kirk. Until more information is received, it looks like this dolphin-themed supercriminal might have simply vanished back into the Bay from whence they came."_

The most baffling part about it all is that he appears to be proud of it. Proud of you for _not_ living up to the company name and becoming a prim and proper seadweller in a several-thousand dollar suit. Proud of you for gallivanting about in a skin-tight outfit and high heels stopping crime with a jetbike and a high-powered energy weapon, with an admittedly-feminine (but actually historically royal) nickname bestowed on you by the public.

You can't take this.

"Coming up after the break, reports of a Nevada-based supercriminal enterprise moving into the city, and then sports news with Derek Drymond and what is likely to be Travis Whitley's final season-"

You immediately set the entire server room to shut off for the day, bypassing all shutdown protocols and forcing every machine to go dark.

You spend about a minute or two or ten in the faint ambience of the buzzing circuitry and your own heavy breathing before you decide you need a walk. Or a swim. Some place to relax before you pass out from the stress and get properly fried by electrocuting yourself on the machinery.

You go back to your room and put on a pair of swimming trunks before slipping out the door on the 48th Avenue side of the compound.

The Pacific Ocean is just across the street.

* * *

**Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean  
Ten Minutes Later**

Sweeps ago, when you were more certain about where your life was going and Gl'bolyb happened to be lurking in the Pacific that season, you and Fef would head up to Orange County and go for a swim. And feed Gl'bolyb with "orphaned" lusii and other wildlife.  _Not trolls or humans,_ she insisted, unless they _specifically_ happened to be international fugitives that were _specifically_ so evil that there was _no choice_ but to feed them to the horrorterrors beyond. You didn't want to be _regular_ criminals as kids, let alone supercriminals.

But it mainly consisted of swimming. Where your gills would activate and you'd spend a few moments in shallow water as your eyes refocused and nobody (else) would bother you apart the assorted wildlife and maybe, just maybe, one of those ferals that had become the stuff of aquatic legend.

This being an imperfect ocean, every now and then one of you would get bitten or stung, and it would hurt and you'd feel vulnerable as you saw your own blood swirl into your sight. You'd let each other know through your seadweller ability to vocalize underwater, and you'd hug. First as kids, then as moirails. And then maybe you'd take your mini-crosshairs and tear a new one through the chest cavity of whoever did that to you unless Feferi somehow "tamed" them instead.

You knew the relationship was getting paler because every time you embraced, you felt like you were healed to the point where you were never hurt in the first place. And she felt like she could survive down here even if Gl'bolyb rejected her.

You try to remember that, remember some of that power that reassured you things were going to be all right. The one that helped you to tough it out mentally while Fef's helped you physically. Because they _did_ make you feel all right.

But you can't remember what it felt like.

Because pale never was and never will be enough for you.

You're an Ampora, for fuck's sake. You are the newest-hatched in a long line of mariners, merchants and mercenaries that have ruled the seven salty seas since antiquity. Only the best could ever suffice for yourself and for Skyhorsedad, in works and relationships. Nothing but the flushest matespritship or a kismesitude darker than pitch sufficed for her.

You still think it's _her_ fault she left. Although sometimes, once in a while, you wonder if maybe you had something to do with it as well. But that's beside the point.

Soon you began to have your own internal disagreements on the definition of "the best." It was some kind of double standard reacharound that did nothing when you decided that maybe you wanted to try something outside your usual stuffy outfits and found that maybe, just maybe, women's sizes fit your body better. When you started to seriously wonder if the equally-stuffy seadweller _wasn't_ the mold you were truly, dogmatically meant to fit into.

You never accepted anything less than the best and it frustrated you to your wits' end that you could no longer decide whose 'best' that is.

The note from last night's escapades finally removed that end. You had no choice but to finally go off the deep end.

You try to hope the chilliness of the water will calm you down as you keep try to burn off your stress by swimming as hard as you can away from land in whatever damn direction. You swim as far as your feet will paddle you, as deep as you hope the pressure will squeeze all that tension out of you through your gills, which have at least adjusted to the seawater for the first time in forever.

Before you know it, your legs simply decide to quit, and you're now hovering in the middle of an infinite turqoise lit only by the afternoon sun, staring downward at the faintest silhouettes of the coral and other underwater life that don't lurk too far from the Golden Gate, as well as the various shipwrecks and the ghasts they supposedly contain.

It's almost appropriate. You're a wreck. A wreck alone with your thoughts and whatever tyrian's horrorterror parental figure might currently be trying to exploit it. Although it's less of their Furthest Ring influence and more like your body learning to re-pressurize itself that makes you feel like your head's in a vice, causing you to curl up a little and try to scream.

It's all you believe you can do. At times you wish your species (still?) had that streak of imperial violence that subjugated entire realms across the unbound pages of this deathly-faced code book you call history. Either that or you wish that FLARPing was (still?) legal. When it came down to it though, at least venting to nobody is still better than venting on someone at least in the context of the current legal framework.

As it turns out swimming doesn't make you feel that much better, but after a few rounds of emptying out your gills and sobbing incoherently you are almost fully relieved of the cramps and other afflictions resulting from staying in your makeshift headquarters all morning. You can feel your legs deciding to work again and paddle your way up to the surface so you can see where land is, the sun a little too high up for you to tell which way is east.

You reach land at your own damn pace, climbing onto the Seal Rocks much further north from where you started. Just across the inlet you recognize what little remains of the Sutro Pit on the beach, the first seadweller-exclusive breeding facility west of the Mississippi, and cringe accordingly. It was also the  _last_ seadweller-exclusive breeding facility west of the Mississippi after its owners decided to close up rather than go along with the hemo-equality movement back in the 1960s.

You could go on and on and on about how the world is against you, but you've done that before, and it hasn't really made much difference.

Your frustration is partially subsumed in depression as you trek up the beach near where a bunch of landdwellers are drawing floral patterns and onto the trail toward Point Lookout, dripping a trail of seawater onto the sand behind you next to your webbed footprints. The breezes are blowing in from the Pacific and they are cold even in the fall, and the only part of your body that doesn't feel numbingly frigid are the soles of your feet stinging against the gravel and concrete.

When the trail ends at the sidewalk running down Point Lookout to the visitor's center you notice an inconspicuously pink '57 Chevy Bel-Air passing you to your left and then quickly parking in the nearest empty spot. Your little swim and the subsequent chilly air has gotten your nervous system alert enough that you notice that it's being driven by what appears to be a troll in a leather jacket, denim, slicked back hair and filed-down horns.

This being almost two decades into 21st century, there is only one person you know who could possibly be that conspicuous. With that knowledge in mind, you pivot on a heel and immediately turn away with the full intention of fastwalking all the way back to Taraval Street.

"Eyyyyyy!" is the creepily cheery utterance out of his mouth that signifies that you failed before you even take two steps.

The look of sass on your face would be visible from all the way up the hill. "'eyyyy, Cro," you reply with a dejected clenched jaw that's visible from all the way down the hill.

You thought your spawn sibling Cronus was in Nevada, trying to cling desperately to the dive bar spotlight shining into violet eyes glazed over with Vegas pipe dreams. Instead he's here, and running up to you to give you a hug that has always been suspiciously more than brotherly.

"Vwhat's vwrong? I thought you'd be happy to see your brother!" Maybe it was a byproduct of the vat-growing process, but Cronus also had his own little speech impediment to pronouncing his v's and w's. That and his use of human relative terms.

"I thought you w-were in fuckin' Reno, Cro-" you reply before you're taken in a hug that could rival that of a krakenbeast lusus in intensity.

"Come on, buddy, I gotta get out of the desert evwery nowv and then to vwet my gills," he replies with a shrug as he lets you out of his hug. "If I'd knowvn you were takin' a svwim I vwould'vwe joined you."

"That's w-why I didn't-" At least now you've got someone else to be frustrated with along with yourself. Which subsequently reminds you that you're not exactly up for walking all the way back down sunset in the Bay's spontaneously chilly breezes while you're dripping wet. "W-whatevver. Could you just... givve me a ride back to my place?"

"Thought you'd nevwer ask, pal!" Cronus' face brightens before he wraps his arms around himself in a mock shiver, "Golly gee, it's cold out here. You need a towvel or somethin'?"

Chilly as it has been, the breeze has mostly air-dried you apart from your hair, which forms shabby drapes over your forehead and eyes.

"I'm good," you reply, pictures of whatever oil-and-other-fluid-stained rag he calls a towel purging your mind of the offer. "Hope you don't mind the smell'a w-wet fish though."

"Cool," he adds. "Just uh...try not to make the leather smell like it too much, okay?"

You grunt profusely as the two of you walk back to the car. He opens the passenger-side door for you and the re-upholstered seats feel much better than the damn office chair you soaked through. Then he gets in and starts up the old V-8 and the sound it makes is much cruder and at the same time much smoother than the sound of your jetbike, making you seriously doubt that Cronus actually made the effort to put this thing back together.

The ride barely gets past the windmills at the corners of Golden Gate Park when Cronus strikes up conversation.

"So vwhat'cha been up to?" he asks in that patronizingly older-brother manner of his.

You give him an inquisitive glare, because you're tempted to tell him exactly what you've been up to just to rub it in. "Just tryin' to keep in Dad's good graces," You end up rubbing it in the usual way though. "You? Still tryin' to be a Las Vvegas superstar?"

Cronus chuckles. "Oh yeah. Still vworking on those big plans. But I got a fewv things happening on the side too."

"Really." The saturation of sarcasm in your voice is enough to give almost anyone else acute pusher failure. "Do tell."

Cronus was never one for dreams he'd actually make reality at all, let alone side plans. That didn't keep him from at  _looking_ like he lived large thanks to the nigh-unlimited expense accounts the two of you got once you turned seven-and-a-half sweeps.

"No, really! I mean it!" he replies, slightly shocked that you would think that way about his ambitions. "I got a little movwin' and packin' business goin 'round the county there."

To be fair, you thought it would be more befitting of Cronus to start up a 50's style malt shop complete with waitresses on roller skates and a vague and highly dubious employee sexual harassment policy, not something that involves manual labor. Instead of following that up with an almost reflexive fantasy of you in that roller-skate waitress outfit, you resign yourself to that fact that at least he seems satisfied with striking out on his own rather than take part in the moving and packing done by Atlantis, especially after Atlantis cut him off.

"Movvin' an' packin' w-what, exactly?" Knowing Cronus there are all kinds of possibilities, some of which are left to his imagination instead of yours.

"Stuff people need. You knowv," he replies, eyes on the road and his left arm slung over the door.

"No, I _don't_ knoww," you sass back.

"Ah, ye of little faith." Cronus chuckles. "Beverages, snacks, convwenience store stuff. Got vwehicles, a vwarehouse, the vworks."

"Landw-weller bloodpusher-cloggers movvin' around in vvans," you add with a raised eyebrow, to which Cronus clutches his chest. "I should havve expected you to sink that loww."

"Awv, you're hurtin' my feelings here, kiddo," he faux-whines as the car enters the alphabet streets on Judah. "I'm helpin' out the community and evwerything, getting in on the ground floor!"

"More like creeping into the basement," you sneer. "But it's all for the hot babes, right?"

"'Ey, that's just a bonus," Cronus adds with a confident smirk. "I'm gonna start my _own_ empire. And there's nothing the dames lovwe more than a self-made man."

You take the moment to look at the buildings going by to your right, and contemplate the fact that what might have been a double entendre just doesn't warrant as much sass from you as it used to.

It hasn't been a secret to you or the company that a good part of the reason for his abrupt departure was because he didn't feel comfortable in a troll's body. And for sweeps it was something you and Skyhorsedad could both agree was something wrong. At least until you began asking your own questions of yourself around the same time the company decided to heave its expectations for Cronus on top of your inferiority complex.

"So the 'dames' lovve some _loww_ -collar manual laborer w-with filed-dowwn horns rather than some executivve board member wwith a fleet a privvate laser-equipped yachts at his disposal. Got it," you retort with a flippant, well, flip of your hand.

"You knowv you gotta havwe a little hope in things, buddy," is the first matter-of-fact thing that you've heard Cronus say in recent memory as the Bel-Air passes your compound.

"I think I'd knoww enough about hope that I w-wouldn't be stuck here if I _did_ havve it." Your half-lie is more of a half-truth because you literally would not be on this mortal plane if it weren't for this so-called hope power.

"Lemme just play somethin' to cheer you up, okay?" Cronus offers, although it isn't so much an offer as the inevitable condition to taking a ride with him.

He turns a knob on the dashboard to activate the Bel-Air's sound system. Although the radio's faceplate appears original, a closer inspection reveals symbols for Bluetooth and other modern features, which Cronus immediately takes advantage of with the SoundCloud app on his latest-model iPhone.

You tremble and cringe as you are immediately subjected to such generational acoustic masterpieces as 'Don't Leawve Me' and 'Be Vwith Me Nowv.'

At least you didn't ask you to take him across to Oakland or something. You probably would have definitely taken the plunge off of the New Bay Bridge out of spite.

* * *

 **Parkmerced  
** **Five minutes later**

The moment the car comes to a stop in front of your condo tower you immediately take off your seatbelt and exit the vehicle. Silence is a sweet, sweet relief from his cover of Ricky Nelson's "Stood Up."

"Thanks for the ride, Cro," you say as you politely close the door behind you, careful not to muck up the chrome finish on the door handle. You curl your arms around yourself because it's still San Francisco and the wind makes everything colder.

"Any time, little man," he shoots back, with an accompanying shooting finger motion. "And hey, I'vwe got an intern slot open if you're evwer interested."

"Don't call me, I'll call you... _babe_ ," you punctuate the rejection in the last sentence and give a snide wink before he drives off.

You turn right around to the call box and pause.

The most likely scenario is that the guard just buzzes you right in. The worst-case scenario involves Skyhorsedad being home.

The guard doesn't buzz you right in. You ring the penthouse and there is, in fact, a response in the sound of an inquisitive neigh.

That's not good.

"Dad, could you let me in-"

You hear a whinny you could've sworn was _happy_ as the buzzer rings, allowing you to enter.

Something is up.

"Good afternoon, Mister Ampora," the lobby guard says as you make your way to the elevator, "Congratulations."

Despite his perpetual coffee addiction, most of which is clearly going to his thighs, he says it like it's a good thing.

Which means something is definitely up.

And definitely very wrong.

You can smell the scent of wet fish filling the elevator as you can feel the stress returning like it never left. You have absolutely no idea what's going to happen when you enter the penthouse or what you're going to say about it. If he's actually happy or he was just trying to play some kind of twisted mind game with that not. If he's proud of you or finally disowning you and cutting you off.

The elevator door opens at the top floor and opens to a deathly quiet entrance hall. You can feel and hear your webbed footsteps across the carpet, and you stop yourself before you reach the door to the penthouse.

Your hand doesn't even get to the doorknob before Skyhorsedad opens it (how he does it with fins, you will someday have to figure out vis-a-vis everything that requires the dexterity of fingers) and he's there giving a whinny of a satisfaction so genuine that you could suddenly die of pusher arrest.

"Y...yeah I w-was," you respond feebly.

He floats toward the bathroom and is quickly back out with a towel. He nickers that you should probably shower and get yourself dry, because lunch is almost ready and you have class in the evening.

This is even worse than you thought.

Because if he poked around to find out where you were the last few days, who knows what he might have poked around to find up _here_.

You politely accept the towel, shuffle quietly off to your room, close the door behind you and proceed to frantically search through your closet to see if he found your other ensembles.

You're practically dry heaving as you thankfully find them in the same sealed storage box you left them: clothes, wigs, top-shelf fashion accessories, cosmetics, and all untouched at least (you hope) to the best of your memory. You close the box and gently push it back into its spot before withdrawing something more presentable and going to your bathroom with the towel wrapped around your waist.

And speaking of the shower, you keep it unreasonably short. You shuffle quickly to the bathroom and out of it when you're done. You're in there soaping and scrubbing just enough to get that smell of saltwater off of you.

When you emerge from the bathroom in a fresh set of casuals, you can pick up the odor of lunch freshly cooked and served.

To your memory, he has never personally done that for you since you left Los Angeles. Instead he hires a chef-in-training, usually a human or low(er)blood looking for a recommendation, to cook your meals for you and have them refrigerated because he's almost never home except when he visits to pry on your lifestyle. It's a bit of Alternian Roulette sometimes, but you've probably only had only one case of severe food poisoning to the best of your recollection so you don't mind. At least not as much as the chef, whose career could be made or broken on Dad's feedback.

Your dining room is, like the rest of the penthouse and in contrast to your room, sleek, gray and minimalist like a business suit or a polished gun barrel. The room is lined on its west-facing wall with a window that gives you a panoramic view of the Pacific. The table runs parallel to the window with only one seat at one end, since Skyhorsedad never has a need to sit.

But the distance he puts by floating on the opposite tip is literal and metaphorical.

As you take your seat, you burn quickly through whatever stages of acceptance are left in the cycle and prepare for the inevitable. At least the food looks delicious, a high-protein mix of milkbeast cutlet and certified organic vegetables very mildly coated with some kind of exotic sauce.

Dad begins by insinuating that you got the note.

There's no hiding anything like that from him now. You've been preparing a long, bawling confession in your mind since you entered the room. Of Dauphine, of Brezen Maernt, of everything. The kind that would end in your simpering renewal of your vows to family and business straight out of a dystopian novel. But the only thing that comes out is a timid nod with food in your mouth, keeping your eyes looking at your plate.

He then wants you to know that although you probably could have picked a better neighborhood for your first landgrab, you made up for it with your hints of engineering prowess. He then follows it up with the usual questioning noise of why you're still planning to keep going with your Photography major.

"I told you, w-we agreed it's just to lay loww after w-what happened," you say defeatedly.

Then he whinnies something else that almost causes you to choke on your food.

"W-what?!" is your explanation, almost fatally interrupted by a chewed wad almost seeping down your windpipe.

You've never known Skyhorsedad to joke. Mock, insult, humiliate, degrade, put down sure, but never actually joke in plain good humor when it's not at your expense.

So you want to believe he's joking when he neighs that once you're done with your current term at the Academy of Art, you're gonna be shipped out of San Francisco for a full sponsorship to an Ivy League science and engineering college in the vicinity of a major Atlantis facility because the company has decided to welcome home one of its prodigal sons as an intern to engineering.

"I'll...um...I did not expect that."

He knows you didn't. So he explains that you'll be able to keep your little fortress (yes, he used that specific word) on Taraval for the few days that you'll be able to come back for vacation.

"Thanks, dad," you say, trying to muster up some form of submissive gratefulness, "This is...a lot to take in."

He nods. Only the best for an Ampora _that deserves it_ , he nickers with due emphasis, now eat up.

The two of you finish your plates in relative silence before he takes the plates and loads them in the dishwasher.

"Oh, um...dad?"

He perks his head in your direction.

"Can I, um...havve some time to think about all this?"

He nods. Of course he knows this is another big change. "Another" being the operative word. He tells you not to take too long, because you also have class in the evening.

You get up, wipe your mouth with the provided napkin, and head to your room.

When you said this was a lot to take in, you actually meant it. In the last few weeks you've been the giver of gratuitous ass kickings, acquired a personal superhero headquarters and the patronage of the city's most (in?)famous superhero, gotten your masked visage citywide television exposure at the risk of your own life, and somehow re-earned the respect of your lusus and the corporation that sponsored your very existence.

The biggest shocker of it all, at least so far, is that not once has he brought up or even hinted at your brand new alter ego. Surely someone as attentive to your personal life as Skyhorsedad must have at watched or read the news and put two and two together. Surely someone so violently rigid to ensuring you follow the straight and narrow would have at least been upfront at telling you.

Not even a swim could prepare you for these forces coming to loggerheads.

You sprawl yourself across the bed. The same bed where you received that visitation months ago.

Any other time this would be an easy decision for you. This time you want it to be an easy decision for you. Pack up the stuff, jump this sinking ship before the squeakbeasts and head for Europe or the East Coast for another attempt at success and a flushed relationship with Feferi.

But you look back at what you've done, what  _you've_  built up for yourself. And deep down, you feel that faintest, tiniest sensation.

Pride. Not specifically the kind of pride that San Francisco's known for. Well, you've got quite a bit of that too but that's a different story.

There is actually that most scientifically remote of possibilities that you might actually be proud that you've (re)started a legacy you can call your own, and not just submitted like some kind of blueblood to the one the company wanted you to have.

You have about 3 months to decide, but even an eternity is not enough time.

* * *

 **SCUOS v4.13**  
Bay Area Special Enforcement District  
**SuperCrime Unit - Monitoring Division**  
  
_Good Evening Lieutenant Quistis._  
  
_You have 0 new message(s)._

**== > OPEN HYDRACOM/OPHIUCUS**

**Entering HydraCOM Conversation Area OPHIUCUS.  
  
** **WARNING: All topics discussed in HydraCOM are restricted to the lowest common clearance level. Please contact your supervisor if you believe there has been a violation of clearance protocol. All conversations are logged, and violations will warrant the corresponding disciplinary action.**

**Participants:**

**DCM AR [Deployment|CMD Remington, A|Delta]**  
**MLT WQ [Monitoring|LT Quistis, W|Delta]**  
**MDT UU [Monitoring|DET Ohpeee, C|Alpha]**  
  
**Clearance Level: Alpha**

CMD AR  
What's the sitrep on Dauphine?

DET UU  
It hasn't even been 48 hoUrs. Aren't we getting ahead of oUrselves?

CMD AR  
Don't give me the runaround. Are you sure this is all we have on Dauphine right now?

MLT WQ  
Positive. We've already put out the alerts. Extra units will be deployed to the City and County.

DCM AR  
What about Villar and Kowalski?

MDT UU  
Dazed but unharmed, and very angry. They're raring for another go.

DCM AR  
I'll have them scheduled for patrol as soon as they're cleared. Has the mayor's office prepared a statement?

MDT UU  
Commander, the information we have pUts Dauphine at Medium SCUTTLE at the very worst. We won't even get a city-wide lockdown with that evalUation.

MLT WQ  
I concur with Detective Ohpeee. It might just be another costumed wannabe.

DCM AR  
COSTUMED WANNABES DO NOT DRIVE VEHICLES THAT ARE NOT STREET LEGAL IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA.

MDT UU  
Neither do most street racing sUspects, I might add...

DCM AR  
Just keep us posted. Moving on, am I informed that Dauphine isn't the only new supercriminal on the loose in the S.E.D.?

MLT WQ  
Possibly. CHP reports of suspected members of the School of Merman along the I-280 corridor.

DCM AR  
WHAT.

MLT WQ  
At least that's what they're spotting on those leather jackets. A couple of speeding tickets and disorderly conduct reports, but no felonies reported since they entered California.

DCM AR  
THERE ARE NOW TWO AQUATIC-THEMED SUPERCRIMINALS IN THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA AND WE ARE GOING TO FIND OUT WHAT KIND OF GRATUITOUSLY ILLEGAL DEALINGS THEY ARE UP TO.

MDT UU  
I'll contact Reno CoUnty and have them forward the Merman's data to Us.

**[MDT UU] has left chat | Client exit 13:23:01**

MLT WQ  
Arnold, I think Deployment is overreacting to this again. We still don't know if we have another Debonair Corsair or Cacoethes on our hands. We'll need more time.

DCM AR  
Wendy, you know it's San Francisco's fault for stretching us thin after they voted to put New Cantown in the budget. That's a gap that can easily be exploited.

MLT WQ  
You know as well as I do that Warren's trying to look out for the people of this city as much as we are.

DCM AR  
I know, but between Uroboros, Merman, this new Dauphine as well as the supercriminal elements in organized crime, it won't matter if people can finally afford to live in the Bay Area again if some supercriminal is just going to turn their neighborhood into a warzone again.

MLT WQ  
We promised Penelope that we could make it end. Sometimes it means getting to the root of the problem, not just burning the weeds.

MLT WQ  
I'll be right back. Daily report needs filing.

**== > AFK HYDRACOM/OPHIUCUS**

* * *

**Cabrillo Highway (California SR 1)**  
**Somewhere north of Half Moon Bay, California  
1:21 am**

The night is no longer young and the parts of your outfit that don't require polishing are currently in the washing machine because you absolutely will not send it to someone who could get curious about your other- _other_ secret identity, so you had it commissioned by your company's research group to be washing machine friendly. One day you'll be able to trust someone to get it cleaned for you instead of having to use landdweller methods, but that day isn't in your foreseeable future.

Speaking of landdwellers, laundry isn't the only daily affair you're stooping to their level to do.

If diving in the ocean couldn't relieve you of your stress, then maybe a good jetbike ride would get you to do your damn homework. That was totally not an analogy you wanted to make, but it'll work for the purposes of actually doing your homework and referring back to your outfit, which is currently a requisite-expensive branded one-piece motorcycle suit in violet. And biker heels. Can't step out of your place for some fun and pleasure without something fabulous.

You've brought your jetbike out here specifically because this week's assignment is composition in low light.

To complete this composition you're gonna give that teacher a moon over the ocean. Teachers love moons over the ocean. If the assignment was just the ocean you'd bring your underwater camera and preserve some true beauty in digital form before those landdwellers irreversibly ruin it with their litter and viscous substances. Or G'bolyb "cleanses" it, whichever comes first.

It was easy enough to remove the cowling and other panels so your jetbike now looks just that infinitesimally more normal. For a motorcycle without actual wheels anyway. It also, curiously, eliminated the dolphin-like noises it made when it accelerated. You made a mental note to scientifically deduce the reason why, after you finish your assignments. And possibly figure out how Skyhorsedad opens doors without using his snout. And without the dolphin noises, you're actually noticeably less conspicuous...to the SuperCrime Unit anyway. You've kept the police radar function on the GPS the whole way here, and so far you've kept a low profile.

Although by "low" you mean there haven't gotten near any blips on the radar that'd notice a blatantly-illegal jetbike flying across city streets. But enough sidetracking.

The vista jutting off the highway is perfect for the view, the ivory sphere hanging low over the ocean as the occasional car whizzed past you for reasons completely unrelated to your photographic endeavors. And you've packed light just for these endeavors.

That is to say, you've kept the specially-designed satchel bag containing your four-digit-price consumer camera and tripod and all its lenses slung closely around your shoulder the whole way here. Now you're taking high-res snapshots of the horizon.

Okay, fuck swimming. Looking out at the moon and all its little details and digitally capturing them in RAW format at various low light exposure levels and compositions is actually pretty soothing. Your memory cards get filled quickly with very subtle variations of the same photo because of the RAW format's size.

So must the good times end quickly. In any case, your naked jetbike is still fittingly exposed to the elements and passersby who are more than a little awake and looking for something interesting along this ocean road apart from the scenic view.

You pack up and saddle up, slinging your bag and tripod over your shoulder, retracting your ear fins to your head so the helmet slides over. The jetbike starts up smoothly, levitating just off its stands like the science "fiction" made science reality machine that it is. You shift into gear and pull a stationary 180 before jetting back up Route 1 from whence you came.

You'll have to stay awake, it'll be a bit of a trip back avoiding as much of the obvious police hiding spots as possible. You'll come back up the same way you got down here, 92 to the 35 straight up to Sunset and home.

About a mile up though, it's not the wind keeping you awake, it's a rumbling. You'd think it's a rumbling in your chest cavity, but you can also hear it reverberating through your helmet. You check your rear-view mirrors again.

And end up briefly staring into the reflective glare from a pair of ominously large choppers tailing you with their lights at full beam.

You want to be thankful that at least they aren't SCU patrols, but Half Moon Bay isn't within the Special Enforcement District's jurisdiction. And it doesn't make them any less threatening, the way they're slowly pulling up to your jetbike's sides.

You try to keep ignoring them. You kick your jetbike into a higher gear, not to go too far above the speed limit but because the small blast of exhaust your jetbike gives off is supposed to be intimidating.

But these two are probably turned on by it, because it entices them to get closer. Your jetbike still glides smoothly around the highway's sweeping, scenic curves, but your maneuvers begin to waver a little as the two bikers get closer and closer.

By the time you realize you've been focused more on the road ahead that you've missed the exit to Route 92 and now have to go straight through the tunnel a few miles ahead, they're nearly wheel to wheel with you.

You don't know what they want. You'd prefer not to know.

You kick out another boost, this time to actually go faster, but the twin goons are catching up. Every now and then a car breezes by on the opposite lane and you hope that it takes out one of them to no avail, they smoothly evade it like sharks hungry for blood.

And you're the seadweller, dammit. At least you're sure you're the only seadweller of the three bikers on this gog-forsaken stretch of concrete. You're supposed to be the predator in this analogy. But then again, you weren't the alpha seadweller in your batch, why would you be the apex predator?

Either way, you're going to have to make a decision pretty quickly. As in, your GPS shows that the Tom Lantos Tunnel is ahead as the other option to the Devil's Slide and there's at least one police radar in the parking lot between the two, quickly. As in, the same Devil's Slide that got replaced by the Tunnels because it's not lit up and is probably partially eroded into some falls that may or may not muck up your facial work at the very least. As in, the Tom Lantos Tunnel you could probably outgun all of them in at the cost of having every cop south of San Francisco waiting for you at the other end. As in, the fuck if you're going to stop and turn yourself in.

As in you've rounded the bend right and the stoplight right before the tunnel is turning yellow and gog knows these two are probably going to follow you back down to Half Moon Bay if you pull another standing 180 right now.

Well, you could probably actually do that and outgun them when you properly transfer out to Route 92. If you were in a much less harried mental state that is.

You shout "Fuck it!" against all your better judgments and steer onward to your fate.

Which you damn well hope does not involve you dying. Again.

**== > TO BE CONTINUED  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And with that we make a less-than-subtle introduction to our first villain arc. Because I'd hazard right now the Midnight Crew are busy up north and apart from Itchy's failed solicitations, Dauphine is still currently not too much of a threat to the Felt.
> 
> Also yes, I did change Eridan's superhero persona name a little to fit the translation because the Dauphine of France was literally the wife of the heir apparent. So maybe it fits more. I'll be editing/retconning previous chapters soon.


	7. ==> FILE 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I'm gonna get in my car / I'm gonna drive real fast / But wherever I go / Seems like, trouble'll find me / And I don't want trouble to find me / No more, no more, no more_  
>  \- Troll Alec Baldwin, "Welcome to Las Violas EP ft. Troll Josh Groban"

**Devil's Slide**  
**Cabrillo Trail (formerly California SR-1)**  
**1:33 am**

You are Eridan Ampora and you're plummeting to your doom with your jetbike and another biker's body soaring off the Devil's Slide with you.

Wwelp.

* * *

**== > This really can't be it, right?**

  **Years Earlier**  
**New York, NY**

No, because you are still Eridan Ampora and as you ogle yourself in the dressing room mirror in a fancy five-star hotel room you realize you are fabulous as FUCK for the first time in your life, with all caps for emphasis. But you're not going to admit that to yourself.

Well, At least not in front of these...landdwellers.

"Oh. My God. Eridan, you look totes adorbs in that!" one of them replies, her face going as pink as her anime-inspired magical girl outfit.

"I concur with Roxanne here. You look, as they'd say, ab-fab," the other adds, clasping her hands in adoration from the comfort of her frontier gown.

The road that led to this moment was much less winding than the ones you would encounter later on in life, but with no less surprising consequences.

It was that time of year when spring began mellowing out into summer and big industrial conferences happened and you and your lusus were flown over in your private jets so he could go off and do science conference-y things knowing you weren't off gallivanting in some kind of crazy superperson outfit doing crazy shenanigans. As if the Crown Prince of Atlantis would ever stoop to such crazy things, right?

As it so happened, the Lalonde girls were in town for whatever their matriarch was doing at her own conferences. And as it also...so...happened, they were booked into the building across from yours.

You always admired Mrs. Lalonde (in the sense that when you take over the world, she would be enslaved for her talent rather than killed outright as a landdweller) for her legitimate scientific pursuits into debunking what had been previously considered fields of outright quackery.

Not so much her own daughters, who were much more into actual wizardry. An oxymoron of course, since **MAGIC IS NOT REAL**. Roxy (the elder) enjoyed the entertainment aspect of magic despite ostensibly wanting to follow in her mother's trade whereas the more eloquent Rose (the younger) more thoroughly engorged her interests in wizardy literature and hoped to become such a writer herself. Not that there was anything wrong with the literature in itself. You did quite enjoy sticking a little magical fantasy between the more thoroughly-grounded tomes of Panzer development and other important works regarding military history and conquest. But never ever did such fantasies - the ones about magic, specifically - leave the literature.

You would have otherwise left the two girls with their literature and gone off and hired a black cab to shuttle you between partaking in the finer things about New York. VIP box seats to plays on or _just_ off of Broadway. Michelin-starred cuisine in the TriBeCa. And of course, a tour of the fine vintage items to be partook of in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with your black card. Items you were likely to wear or use and/or put up on social media with at least three different hashtags, once and only once, before vanishing into storage or onto eBay.

But _no_ , your lusus insisted that you begin professional networking. Getting in the good graces of Dr. Lalonde's two magical daughters would be _de facto_ getting in the Good Doctor's graces herself, which means more opportunities for actual science for you and the family.

So you agreed. Rose was quite looking forward to the opportunity, apparently, while the elder Roxanne was looking forward to the opportunity to playfully josh you at every turn with her whimsical if not somewhat archaic usage of vocabulary.

But the two of them eventually did break the ice with you, and across multiple subway trips in which you huddled to yourself in the corner away from the riff-raff and hoi polloi the fine vintage was indeed partook of in Williamsburg. And Chelsea.

They seemed to want to try different pieces of clothing on you as the three of you strolled down the aisles and across the racks of the various discount fashion outlets. Well, two of you. Roxy was about as enthusiastic as a Hampton girl in a much more upscale mid-Manhattan place. But more important was the fact that each piece of clothing they selected was clearly marketed toward girls-and-girls-identified at some point since manufacture and that's just not _your_ style. Still, you didn't want to make them feel bad if it meant possible connections with . You nodded your head and politely refused at each component, however garish they were, thinking they would forget by the time you were finished.

Oh how wrong you were.

In anyone else's presence you would have no shortage of obscenities to describe your outfit. Tubetops, arm warmers and stockings in matching striped colors, a plaid miniskirt straight out of a Spring Break gone bad video compilation, and goth boot heels that you swear are the exact same color combination as your casual custom Converse All Stars. You swear that all you need are a helmet and safety pads and you could pass for queen of the roller derby instead of the prince of the empire.

And that wig. Oh, the wig. OH SWEET JEGUS GOG IN TROLL HEAVEN THAT WIG. Twin cheerleader ponytails with purple streaks that match the one natural to your hair. With ribbons. PRETTY, PRETTY RIBBONS. OH SO PRETTY RIBBONS.

You don't even notice yourself posing and puckering your lips like it feels like you can't help it until you notice Roxy pulling out her smartphone in the reflection of the mirror and handing it to Rose.

After about a minute's worth of blushing and trying to suppress your inner seadweller rage, you finally stammer out, "W-well, I suppose it looks kind'a nice."

"See! I knew he'd love it!" Roxy squeals.

Maybe you've crossed the boundaries of horrific landdweller taste into something ironically worthy of advancing some kind of cause. Emphasis on irony.

The one other thing you finally admit to yourself is that you not only look good but that it actually feels good. You wouldn't go too far as to say it feels natural, but you can definitely say it's cathartic. Like it's something you've wanted to do for a long time (like killing all the landdwellers) but also something you didn't know you'd wanted to do until now ( _un_ like killing all the landdwellers).

"Just don't...put it on Instagram, okay?" You say, blushing. "I mean- nothin' identifiable?"

Through the reflection on the mirror you can just see the hint of a sardonic frown on Rose's face as she puts Roxy's phone on standby before setting it down on the dresser. "All right," she faux-moans, "But you would join us for a little tea, at least?"

"Awwright, but if Dad comes knockin'..."

As far as bad choices go, this honestly isn't that bad. Or it won't seem that bad in retrospect.

* * *

 **Devil's Slide**  
**Cabrillo Trail (former California SR-1)**  
**Present Day  
1:31 am**

The moon is slowly beginning its descent over the horizon, the satellite dazzling gibbous like an off-white sugar cookie as it finishes another rotation around its mother planet. Out here on the northern California coast, the stars shine like jewels in the near-complete absence of light pollution, the waves lapping up against the cliff faces of the scenic Cabrillo trail.

This does not matter one bit to you because your problems are not only down to earth but might also cause you to end up six feet under it.

Many, many choices after the one you made on that New York faux-runway, you are still Eridan Ampora and all you wanted to do tonight was your goddamn homework. Instead you're in an outfit that may have been inspired by the aforementioned faux-runway trip, and your head is boiling in its helmet as you race a jetbike up a dubiously paved hiking trail. There are two ominous-looking bikers on your tail of unknown origin, riding custom choppers and pursuing you for reasons you'd rather not find out.

It is small consolation to you that in this instance you didn't really have a 'good' choice to begin with. It was either go up the Devil's Slide with these two bikers and hope to emerge unscathed going up the long way around, or zip through the tunnel with both bikers and cops and traffic drivers trying to claim their 15 likes of superhero spotting fame.

Now it feels like you either die known or die in ignominy. Either way, those bikers will probably have something to do with it as their tires provide enough traction on the gravel and neglected asphalt to keep up. And either way, you'll probably end up disowned.

That's not to say you won't go down without a fight. Oh no. A panic-affected limb flail of a fight more than a video game road rage, but a fight nonetheless.

The first biker is already readying a chain, swinging it in the air like a lasso as his front wheel reaches your jetbike's rear thrusters. You try to stand up on the jetbike's side pedals to gauge its reaction on a straightaway that's not 5 feet long. Surprise not surprise, it stays about as grounded as the bikers' tangible wheels. Which means that as long as there aren't any sudden turns, you can probably flail your limbs out at the bikers and hopefully do some damage.

Hopefully.

The first biker pulls up on your right, between you and the rock face. You're not going to wait for that chain to come down on your helmet, your body, or Gog seriously forbid, your outfit.

With a half-scream that's more of a yelp you kick your leg out, inexplicably hoping it doesn't get caught in the gears. You do however catch something cylindrical - and the other biker reacts accordingly by suddenly reflexively jerking the bike toward the wall, riding up a small rock outcropping and getting bucked off before going his full 8 seconds in the rodeo. The last you hear of him is a panicked scream before he impacts the decaying concrete, followed by the fading grind of his prized chopper also along the concrete.

You don't see him writhing on the road once his body comes to a complete stop, nor do you savor your latest landdweller conquest, because now you're worried about the other one. Your skeleton of a jetbike still has rear view mirrors equipped but the other biker now has his high beams (beam?) on. The side to side motion of blinding glare keeps you from getting a clear glance back through the reflection, so you react by keeping your speed up as much as you will allow to compensate for the fact that neither your GPS or your mind updating what you read from the GPS is updating as much as you want it to.

And that still doesn't count for much. Your pusher is trying to push its way out of the chest as your body wracks itself from within trying to explore the possibilities of wrecking a priceless piece of future transportation technology, ending up as freshly-ground chum on the cliff face, or worst of all: ruining your camera.

You can feel another hand on your shoulder. By the time you react, you can feel another hand on your arm.

As far as bad choices go, you don't even know you made this one until you're airborne.

These three seconds, taking place about halfway through the minute, seem to last forever as you come to the grim realization that you turned left instead of right. Such a realization is made very clear by the fact that turning right would have actually kept you on a path while going left as you have just done now leads you directly off the path and into the air above the most treacherous part of what was once State Route 1.

The other biker's chopper disintegrates in a fiery husk as it impacts the outcroppings, its rider pulled off of it in mid-air.

You can hear two voices screaming. One is of the biker that grabbed you. He's grabbing you even tighter out of a reflexive notion that maybe your corpse will serve as a flotation device.

Yours is the other voice because as alarms go off on your jetbike like a full scale nuclear meltdown, you refuse to accept the possibility that your corpse will serve as some crazy biker's flotation device.

Your life isn't flashing before your eyes this time either. No, fate has decided to be merciful and make this quick. You flew off the edge of the precipice with enough velocity that you won't hit anything else on the way down, unless the water's too shallow. You'd prefer to dive straight in with the damn thing and hope the lack of cowling keeps you from smashing your helmet face first into the dashboard, but the weight distribution and balancing mechanisms strewn all across this finely engineered piece of shit wants nothing more than to belly-flop.

You gun the thrusters up past maximum level in hover modeas the water rises up to meet you. You close your eyes, brace forward and fucking hope for-

Your body feels like it's suddenly 500 feet under as the jetbike impacts the surface of the water. All of your senses are swiftly numbed out as your vision goes black.

And that's the end- no wait, no. Not yet. Not now. You've just been jarred the fuck out, but that's not stopping your body from trying to switch into seadweller mode for the few moments that you and your jetbike are completely submerged. You surface to open air that is predictably colder than the water you just took a dip in, weighing down on your body still trying to mold your internals back into their proper places.

When you come around to the blurry sight of warm, glowing dials and gauges and the low hum of your jetbike hovering aimlessly over the high tide like an air hockey puck the first thing you want to do is...turn and reach around for the bag to check your camera to see if it's okay. You i.e. Skyhorsedad's designated educational expense account paid upwards of four digits for this equipment and you'd rather not waste your first moment of positive attention from him in recent memory to find out that it's rendered unusable.

Before you can do this, however, you notice that the biker is no longer grabbing onto you. Then you notice all to quickly that the impact seems to have caused all your joints to go stiff. It aches like a motherfucker just sitting up.

Oh, and the moon is reflecting off a dark spot on the water that doesn't seem to be shrinking too quickly. In fact it looks like it's floating right over to you.

Your vision doesn't need to be fully recovered or 20/20 sharp for you to go through all the horrifying possibilities. You're breathing heavier than you were at impact like your body is stuck in seadweller mode. It could just be some mass or seaweed or floating debris. Or it could be a local coastal predator or horrorterror looking for fresh meat. You're still halfway out of panic mode for you to consider the former, not quite past the limit to go completely numb.

You feel the frame up to the switches and touchscreens and run through your jetbike's emergency diagnostics and the myriad of error screens caused primarily by the fact that your jarred eyesight and mind can't fully recall which way the menus were arranged.

Then the moon shines down on what is clearly a biker insignia-shaped patch and you realize you've floated up right next to the poor bastard you took off the cliff with you. Or vice versa.

You'd love to let this fucker drown, if he hasn't already. Or be fresh meat for a local coastal predator or horrorterror. Even more so that he and his buddy ran you off a fucking cliff and have already paid the price with their bikes.

But that'd be a little too easy, you realize as your body is still downgrading its panic level from imminent death to trying to deal with death around you. After all your fantasies of casual genocide, you suddenly realize that this probably isn't a good thing, killing your first landdweller.

That's breaking the law. Okay, so the fact that you've decided to play superhero is already breaking the law, but only in the local jurisdiction. If this guy was actually dead, it would literally be blood on your hands. There would be no way to stretch this to self-defense without revealing pretty much everything you've built over the last month or so. And even if that meant you wouldn't get the death sentence from the SuperCrime Unit, it'd still land your lonely little nook in jail.

As much as you know they'd love raw leather in American jails, you know that the one thing they love more is raw fish. Raw, _disowned_ fish.

Especially ones that already dress the part.

You hurriedly reason that you'd rather feed the American prison population raw leather instead of raw fish.

You try to lift him, but you reflexively pull yourself away on the first attempt. Partially because your shoulder suddenly feels like it's going to snap off of your torso, but also because you've never had your jetbike capsize over the water and you don't want to know what happens if it does. With your body still a twitchy, stiff mess - in a quite honestly platonic way - your jetbike's emergency mode is doing all it can to keep you steady.

There appears to be a small beach between the outcroppings. It's high tide now, so you can drag him up there and not have to worry about him washing away.

Your jetbike allows you to lean over just enough to keep your right hand on his collar with the thrusters banked away just enough to keep from incinerating him. The other operates the throttle and the steering in unison. The relatively short journey back to the small beach consists primarily of repeated jolting and coasting as your twitchy arm operates the throttle in bursts, with your neck struggling to let your head rotate the 90 degrees from the floating semi-corpse to the beach up ahead.

As you do so, your vision finally does un-blur itself, allowing you to get a moonlit view of the logo on this poor soul's jacket.

"School 'a Merman..." you mutter to yourself.

That's a pretty stupid name for a biker gang, you think to yourself. Hell's Angels, Angels of Death, anything with those gogdamned motherfucking angels in it, those are some proper fear-inducing biker names. But this? School of Mermen sounds like one of those strange human animes about swimming that was all the rage on Tumblr a few years ago.

You do admit that perhaps the seahorse (skyhorse?) motif on the logo does give it some imposition, at least to you.

Right before you make landfall you let go of the floating body, and take a deep breath before you cautiously dismount your jetbike. Your attempt at being cautious succeeds beyond your wildest dreams and you trip and fall onto the shore, where you lay for about a minute moaning and groaning and let your body find a way to piece itself back together enough to stand up. You reckon you get about 21.905% of the way by your rudimentary scientific calculations before you realize you're about to let your jetbike drift away.

You get up slowly, to your hands and knees, and then to your knees, and then to your wibbly-wobbly biker boot heels with a very audible groan. You trudge over to the body, turn it over so he's facing up and finish pulling him ashore.

Now that you're face to face with him - pretty sure that's a "him" in this lighting - you can get a good look at the poor sucker. He's a human. Probably about your age, with a Hispanic or Filipino complexion, hair that was likely slicked back before the saltwater treatment rendered it limp like seaweed. There also doesn't seem to be anything that indicates anything is visibly broken - at least on the outside.

It is perhaps ironic that your jetbike doing everything to slow your fall also happened to slow his fall. Clinging to you as an attack on _your_ life quite possibly saved _his_ life.

Fuck broken ribs. You clasp your hands over his torso and press down in some scarcely recalled attempt at chest compressions, hoarsely whispering to yourself more than him to "Come on, breathe. I don't want to go to jail over this!"

He coughs up some water and grunts, his body twitching as his head starts to bob from side to side.

"At least you're not dead," you grumble. "For now."

You can faintly hear the sound of the California Highway Patrol having finally caught up to the scene of the first biker's crash, sirens and all against the waves lapping up against the rocks and sand.

You continue to grumble to yourself as you trudge and then wade back to your jetbike.

* * *

**== > Just get the hell home already.  
**

**48th & Taraval Compound**  
**3:32 am**

You are home. Finally.

But you might as well be dead.

You contemplate this as you stare into the inundated wreckage that is your ~~life~~ camera for the better part of an eternity you'd rather not measure, whilst slumped against your jetbike's husk. Your helmet is off, rolled partially to the side of the garage and you're probably a bit loopy from residual exhaust and utter exhaustion.

It took you the better part of an hour battling your way up what turned out to be reasonably calm waters and a gog-damned frigid Bay Area breeze on a jetbike that was sputtering for its life. You then spent the better part of a half hour making sure there weren't any nighttime beachgoers to spot your ascent. Back onto the Great Highway and into the garage, that is, before letting the prototype finally run out of whatever was fueling it give up its ghost for the evening with a loud, rattling clank on the concrete.

You're cold, wet, and aching all over. You're hungry and probably sick. But apart from that, you're alive. And safe. Amdrobably thankful that you got the jetbike with a full tank and that it didn't die and sink into the near Pacific.

Your camera, however, is not. Alive at all, that is.

You probably cannot confirm this 100% due to the piss-poor fluorescent light in the garage that you dragged this semi-lifeless husk of a prototype amphibious jetbike back into, but considering that you do notice that there might be more than a little moisture on the other side of the lens, you might as well write it off or pawn it off to some desperate student that thinks he can repair "slightly-"used technology back to life.

Forget risking your life on the Devil's Slide against bikers wanting to rule the road. Whoever these Mermen are, they killed the one thing you held dear.

No, not Feferi. Last you were paying attention, and by that you mean paying attention to her social media pages because she never seems to reply on Trollian/Pesterchum or whatever the hip new method of online communication is, she was hanging out in Brazil with her own spawn sibling, hopefully doing proper tyrian seadweller things. Probably enjoying the sunshine and being away from you and-

You're drifting away again, like your jetbike almost did. At least the memory card should still be fine so your homework should be safe. You can hope for that much at least, given the camera's relatively brief immersion.

You sigh and finally let your arms down as your mind drifts again. Is this what it was for? Were you even being a superhero at all?

You probably couldn't have avoided getting into that situation, coming all the way out to what was probably a known biker haunt. But you don't even recall getting all "hope-y" like you did back at the pier the other night. No matter how much you wished, no how much your jetbike sacrificed itself to help you.

Even then, only now, do you realize you probably could have just left the crime scene and the corpses be and let the news crews think that two bikers chasing ghosts or looking to cause some chaos met sticky fates. Sticky in the sense of physical pain, of course. Nobody would have known you were there at all, and if the biker you left on the path blabbed, then it'd just eventually get buried in the police files as some highway ghost story. Oh, and you don't let yourself forget that you could've gone out and did your night assignment elsewhere while you were still high on your little superhero "rush" with all your fancy new equipment and first criminals busted.

These realizations drain the last of that rush out of you, leaving you in something that is probably close to cosplayer's post-convention depression. You are kind of still in costume, after all.

You think you'll get over it. Once you get your outfit back from the cleaners and swear never to use them again so people don't find out your actual identity. You currently don't see yourself pursuing this superhero business with as much intensity as you did. Maybe you'll retire before you're too deep in against the SCU and turn your compound into a proper mini-hub of science and development for things to _properly_ entertain your casual fantasies of genocide.

Probably. Probably not.

For now, you just need more time to moan and groan and let your body reassemble itself.

And you'll probably need the rest of the night to do so. Really, who do you think you are? Uroboros?

* * *

 **== > Be Uroboros**  
  
**Hunter's Point-Bayview**  
**3:35 am**

You cannot be Uroboros because you are a member of the School of Merman and you're scoping out a score.

Bikes being a little too obvious in this part of town, you and a few other Mermen have "requisitioned" yourselves a reasonably inconspicuous generic-looking sedan parked in a dark alley across from the small warehouse in question. One of them is riding shotgun with a shotgun, just in case. The other two are doing the actual scoping.

"Doesn't seem too heavily guarded," you mutter to yourself and the guy riding shotgun. The other two are supposed to be having a look around. "They'd put more guys on this if they've got the stuff the boss needs."

There's a knock on your window and you go for the pistol in your jacket instead of your lighter.

"'Ey, it's me." One of the 'other two' is fogging up the driver's side window with his breath.

"You fuckers weren't followed, were ya'?" you ask, your hand gripping the 9mm Hawk & Little.

"You see anyone else around?" the fourth guy replies, without any sign of undue begging.

You let go of the pistol, reach around and behind to let the 'other two' back in the vehicle. You get the motor running as soon as the doors open, and you're moving as soon as they get their feet in the car. You start off in reverse to get to the other end of the alley, then pull out onto a main road.

Once you're back up to cruising speed, the debriefing begins.

"So what'd ya find?" you ask.

"They've got the stuff, that's for sure." First scoping guy replies. "Plenty of it. Enough to get us established in the Bay Area and pay off the locals we don't want too pissed at us."

"What about the guards?" you add, keeping your eye on the road in case the cops have made your vehicle.

"They look more like posers than OGs. And they ain't got patrols comin 'round here too often. If we get enough guys and a container truck on this, we can ride out with most of it."

"Okay. I'll ring up the boss in the morning," shotgun replies. "Nothing big happens, we can hit this place up within the week."

"Got it," you and second scoping guy reply in unison.

The night stretches on before you, as you head southward and away from the City and County to hawk off this square-assed ride and get back to your bikes. You really can't stand being trapped in a car like this, but everyone has to make sacrifices when they're part of a crew on the up-and-up, at least for a short time. As long as they don't end up in jail or state's evidence. You swore to be Mermen and free till you die, and you hope to add rich to that list too.

Really, apart from gang reinforcements and the usual assortment of local law enforcement, who's gonna come after you? Uroboros?

**== > FILE END**


	8. ==> FILE 8

**== > FILE OPEN**

**Market Street  
1:35 am**

 

You'd call it initiative that brought you out here, rather than impulse and/or a lack of things to do now that you've done your homework.

You'd also call that brushed white metal cylindrical thing you're rolling between pairs of pinched fingers a wand. Or w-wand.

You are currently Eridan "Dauphine" Ampora, and the late-model diesel-electric bus plodding the N-Owl line past the Civic Center is hardly what you'd call a superhero patrol vehicle. But with your jetbike needing an array of parts from R&D and what is likely to be a week's total of trollhours getting it back a shape that won't spontaneously combust after its unexpected dip off California State Route 1, and no way of getting another vehicle let alone a place to store it with Skyhorsedad already knowing you have a secret headquarters, it'll probably have to do as you continue your awkward ascent up the superhero echeladder with the country's most deadly anti-super force lurking somewhere in the background.

No, magic still isn't real. And you're honestly here out of impulse and/or a lack of things to do after your homework. Also, this "wand" is Atlantis' prototype Concentrated Energy Discharging Personal Defense Weapon. CED-PDW. Sedp'doo.

The slightly tapered metallic-white cylinder honestly looks like a really long cigarette or blunt at a distance, the realization of which causes you to quickly reholster it before the bus driver notices.

You've had to beg R&D for the better part of a week to let you have this specibus again. When they finally dispensed it to you, it barely had enough powercells in it to leave nothing more than mild blisters  _if_ you focused it on the same spot long enough.

The worst bit about it is, you know exactly why.

**== > Why?**

* * *

**Westwood, CA**  
**Years ago, but not too many**

You are still Eridan Ampora and you stopped counting the long, painful days and the lonely, lonely nights since Fef left you for the East Coast.

You've also stopped your moaning and angst-blogging and your withdrawals into genocide fantasy and literature.

Because you're sure you've found a way to win her back.

This process begins with you standing here in the tastefully-lit fitting room of a highly exclusive tailor, putting on a bright white tuxedo with matching pants. The tailor is about as high end you can get without going to Rodeo Drive, but then again you've already been there and you need different parts sourced from different outlets for the same damn reason.

As you slide it over your undershirt and royal purple vest, the tuxedo fits you like the velvet gloves that follow. The suit matches your white pants almost perfectly, with purple trim in just the right corners to make you look like you cut a more imposing figure than you actually do.

You magazine pose a couple of times with it, eying yourself in the mirror and creatively visualizing the other parts of the outfit. You give yourself a satisfied grin before changing back into your frumpier casuals, purple cape included.

"I'll take it," you harumph to the human concierge as you step out of the fitting room and back onto the sales floor. So far, You've been doing a great job of strategically concealing what it's actually for.

For all Skyhorsedad knows, you're buying this for those fancy functions he drags you to in order to build up your proper social circle. You've let him know this while paying the tailors in cold, hard cash. It's classic military-style deception, getting him to think something else about what you're really going to do.

You are escorted out of the store into a few moments of mostly-flawless Southern California sunshine before you are chauffered into the large white Mercedes G-Series SUV that pulls up to meet you in the driveway. It's a relatively cool autumn morning, but you'd rather not stay for those last remnants of summer's heat. You slink into the air conditioned back seat and the valet carefully hangs the coat on the handles just above the inside of the right rear door before closing it.

Your mouth curls up into an evil grin as the SUV pulls away. You're already stroking the tuxedo's embroidered cover like an underling pet as soon as you buckle in.

You can't wait to try the rest of the outfit on.

* * *

**Ampora Residence**  
**Beverly Hills, CA**  
**About One Hour After That**

And fortunately for you, you didn't have to wait long, LA traffic notwithstanding. To say that the ornate gates opening to your gated mansion's driveway only increases your enthusiasm is an understatement. Once you get out and have your chauffeur unload your new attire, the two of you hurry right past Skyhorsedad in the meal block (managing the chefs) making dinner and make the short trek upstairs to your room overlooking the mansion's equally-sprawling back yard. The chauffeur hands you your outfit before you get into your room.

Your personal bedroom in this residence has pretty much everything a spoiled little seadweller boy such as yourself could want. King-size bed, TV embedded in the wall opposite with multiple current-generation gaming consoles rigged up to it, a stylish black cabinet properly securing your Crosshairs. All matched up in a muted white and purple theme befitting of a little prince. Walk-in closet to one side, personal recuperacoon and loadgaper-ablution block opposite. Oh, and a balcony leading out to a view of your sprawling lawnring.

You almost spill the gear in your rush to lay them out on the bed. The other parts of your ensemble are already hung around your room and begging (as it were) for you to try them on.

The cover comes off of the tuxedo, your casuals come off of your body, and the tuxedo and undershirt take their place on your skin. You must say it actually looks even better now than it did when you tried it on earlier, but you're not going to say that too loud. And besides, you haven't accessorized either.

First there are the shoes, packed lovingly in a black box bearing only the gold lettering of its fabricator. Custom authentic swamp bitebeast lusus leather from an Italian shoemaker that you had flown all the way out from Milan to get fitted for. He's the finest in the business, because the final product is exactly the right size AND width for your feet. Cinderfuckingella and her fairy-fucking-goglusus would fall completely flushed for the princely figure you cut as you slide them on your feet.

Delicious subtle texture with gold trim, natural rubber outsole and a memory foam insole because these kicks are going to be doing a _lot_ of kicking.

Then there is a sleek white trilby with a violet band resting quietly on a mannequin head with a gold-trimmed purple bandit eye mask around it. Also endangered lusii hide, and did you mention the violet velvet band around the hat too? Of course you did. It sits on your head perfectly, barring the transparent plastic strip that wraps almost invisibly around your chin. Yes, it feels off, but you don't want it coming off all of a sudden with what you intend to do with it.

There are the special kevlar horn guards that conceal your distinctly shaped horns under a long swooping arc, and then there's the cape, slung over the mannequin's shoulder. Oh, the cape. It's not as fluffy as the kind slung around the necks of LA's famous peddlers of pleasure. But while it is thicker than your usual purple velvet, it's also lighter and gives a more aerodynamic flutter when you do your villainous swoop. And you do indeed swoop as you clasp it around your neck.

The eye-mask goes on third to last, and the velvet gloves go on second to last. Because the last part is the item packed in a metal Zero Halliburton briefcase on your bed that you carefully unclasp as if to expect an orange-y glow inside.

The items inside seem innocuous enough. A slightly tapered metallic white cylinder about the thickness of a Sharpie marker and 2/3rds as long as your forearm, nestled securely in a layered black foam block. There is a shiny dark plastic spot that matches up where you put your thumb, that slides up about half an inch.

That's the biometric switch of what the lab squeakbeasts call the concentrated energy discharging personal defense weapon. Or as the landdwellers will call it when they're running for their lives, a wand.

Of course magic isn't real, but this _is_ the La-la-land of Wood and Holly after all. If all these filthy landdwellers can be convinced of it every time they go to the movies or rent one on disc or streaming media, then more power to the theatrics.

There is also a matching black leather holster for it, which will sling around your undershirt and make unsheathing and resheathing it a cinch as long as the safety's on. But you'll put that on in a bit.

For now you stroll up to the mirror and give your wand a little wave. The biometrics built into the switch can tell it's you, and the safety's on, until you switch it off. You can hear a faint whine as the CEDPDW/wandkind charges itself, the firing end starting to glow. You stare into your reflection in the mirror like it's a target and...turn the safety back on.

You might be an ambitious supervillain-to-be, but gog knows you haven't forgotten your trigger discipline.

That's right, the path to winning Feferi back starts with you becoming a full-fledged _supervillain._

As you look at your full outfit in the mirror, you immediately decide that like every supervillain you need a proper supervillain pose.

You wrap your cape around you, wand teasingly poking out near your face.

_Evil half-hidden smile, and it goes perfect with the top hat._ But this isn't the 1800s and the SF-to-LA high speed rail line is still a good decade away at the least. Plus you have this irrational fear of being cut in half for some reason.You'll need another pose.

The kind of pose that will grace the metaphorical statues of your supervillain empire. Still, the greatest empires started with small beginnings, even if only in popular myth.

Rome started with two human babies and a wolf lusus. Britain started, appropriately enough, with a recently-pupated wriggler pulling a weapon of untold power out of a body of water. Examples more grounded in historical accuracy are Britain's red-headed step child America, which started with a bunch of drunken rioters throwing tea into Boston Harbor before violently exterminating those that stood in the way of its Manifest Destiny.

Or even Germany, whose apex was reached under the stewardship of a vagrant art school reject with visions of dividing the world between his selected "uber-breed" of human and the old Alternian Empire before planning to turn against it in one final battle for supremacy.

Unfortunately, Großdeutschland became an exception with its twelve-year lifespan which also dragged Even Greater Alternia down into the swirling loadgaper of history with its maniacal impulses. But then again that's what happens when you leave the very direction of species in the hands of a vagrant art school reject more prone to overglorified beer hall speeches than someone more well versed in the formulation and study of military strategy.

Fortunately for you, you are not a vagrant or a reject from art school and you have actually studiously...well, studied military history. So you have that going for you, at least.

And you have actually planned out your strategy for supervillain domination. With most of the details going into that first step. Got to live day by day, you know.

_Hands on hips, throw head back, laugh. Great for theatrics and even better with bad weather,_ but will probably leave you vulnerable to a sniper if you take more than a little too long.

There's a jewelry store on Rodeo Drive that will suffice as your first stepping stone. You've been there enough times to get the ostentatious jewelry you normally wear on your fingers that you know what security measures they have in place - along with what few guards they have that don't want to die over allegedly ethical shiny metals and gems. Get in, break open the cases with your wand - ahem, _concentrated energy-discharging personal defense weapon_ \- and make off with your stash in your disposable getaway vehicle.

_Then walk away from the explosion. Cool guys don't look at explosions, not even ironically. Whether it be your car or your escape sub self-destructing after you've gotten it back to landfall._ No wait, you'll probably get hit by shrapnel and killed or at least scarred enough to be identifiable.

But yes, _disposable_ getaway vehicle. You've quietly moved some funds around into accounts Skyhorsedad hasn't discovered yet. The cash greases the palms of a few of your R &D folks looking for promotions, to get you the equipment you need. The clothes were all acquired from separate vendors, as well as the "disposable" sports car, which you plan to report as stolen right before you hit the jewelry store.

You know some great spots off of Orange County to stash a getaway submersible. Places conveniently off of large drops you can drive, eject and parachute out of. You can hide down there till the heat dies down, emerge with your loot, dispose of the submersible. You've even arranged, in that greatest touch of irony, to sell those valuables back to your company because you know they've been looking to cut corners when it comes to materials acquisition. Under an assumed name of course.

_Look down at your fallen foe/s. Point wand and let him beg for a few seconds before punching a concentrated energy hole right between the eyes._ Might work, but skip any monologue. And maybe the few seconds. _Just stare into his eyes long enough to destroy any semblance of hope left in his gog-forsaken soul._ Yes. You should probably have some innate power to destroy hope. That should have to be a thing that happens.

As you go along your virtuous cycle of heist-exterminate-repeat you'll hire up your own henchmen, seadwellers who hate landdwellers as much as you do. You know there are plenty of forums that are fertile recruiting ground all over the internet. Equip them handsomely, vaporize a few to keep them in line (sacrifices do have to be made) and you've got an army ready to take on the world.

You'll build a proper villain's lair underwater where not even American nuclear subs can reach you, where you'll eventually graduate from plain old heists to straight up doomsday planning. You'll have a much bigger, much more well-equipped personal living quarters than this. The only thing that will be smaller in your headquarters is how much bed/recuperacoon space you'll personally need.

Because if you can't go pale or flushed for Fef then so help you  _Gog_ you'll flip it pitch so black that you'd make a horrorterror blush. Are horrorterrors capable of blushing? You should put that in some kind of mental theory log because maybe that explains what causes the worst instances of red tide or oil spills where there aren't even any rigs or pipelines nearby.

It'll be like the olden-ish days, only this time both rival empires will be troll-controlled this time. You'll politely defer to Feferi as she is still that one notch on the hemospectrum higher than you. But you'll make her snarl and scream in kismesitude as you rule efficient and brutal over your subjects, the 2/3rds of the surface covered with water ruling a true majority over the 1/3rd - or at least those will be the proportions before you melt the ice caps.

Those landdwellers quivering and shivering in fear in the gulags you'll have built deliberately on the border with Feferi's New Alternia will wonder how you can get away with these atrocities until it's that time of the tensweep for two-party negotiations. And when the two of you are seated face to face you'll...

You're getting way ahead of yourself here. You're a strategist, not some kind of lonely fish hipster. A scientist, and a magician only for show.

You are Eridan Ampora, rookie supervillain, and...you forgot you need a name for your persona. Fuck.

Skyhorsedad's "dinner's ready" neigh can be heard muffled through the door. You change your outfit back to your casuals and decide to think up a name while you eat and try to contain your enthusiasm.

**== > Think of a name.**

* * *

  **Market & Dolores  
Present Day**

You are back to being a currently-rookie superhero/supervigilante already semi-officially named after a freaking _dolphin_ , and you are sitting almost invitingly cross-legged with your arms across the tops of the seats as the bus rumbles down Market Street, alternating glances out the side windows and your allegedly secure Blackphone. On the Blackphone, you thumb from side to side between an app that (supposedly) monitors nearby commercial alarm systems and Trollian Mobile.

Neither app shows any activity, and you're visibly more disappointed with Trollian Mobile than you are with the alarm app.

Because for you the main flaw of instant messaging is that while you can see if you've been banned from chats you can't see if a user has directly blocked you. And you can't tell if Feferi changed her handle, blocked you, or put you on silent. Neither has that stopped you from giving her a poke or a "hi fef" every now and then in some stubbornly futile attempt to spark the unrecognizable glob of wet powder that your relationship has become.

At least the laundromat returned your outfit intact after your near-death involvement with the Scuds, which explains why you're wearing it minus the extra pointy bits (apart from those heelboots) or helmet. You'd put on a bandana, but you're probably already weirding out the bus driver enough as it is, staying on the bus as it looped around the end of Market Street and back. So you simply put on quite a bit of makeup and horn concealers.

If they can separate your "Brezen Maernt" persona from Eridan Ampora, that'll have to suffice. It's better than looking out at the empty streets of Downtown-ish San Francisco on a weeknight and watching the streetlights and homeless landdwellers go by, although this is something you will have to do on your way home.

You resolve to get off at Church and wait around for the the L-Owl so you can head back home and focus more on repairs and hope Dad hasn't decided to pay your garage another unexpected visit. You'd thank Gog that he didn't discover you slumped by your crippled jetbike in drag with a waterlogged camera on the ground next to you. Forget dangerous cliffside drops, you came really perilously close to losing the only genuine goodwill you've gotten from your lusus in recent memory.

You close Trollian and scroll over back to the main screen, where

**"Bikers in stable condition after Cabrillo Highway incident"**

is displayed on your constantly updated local news feed. You've already read the article twice through. The local authorities suspect that a "third biker" driving an "unknown model" motorcycle might have been involved and that any leads should be reported. At least you can say you haven't killed someone - and if they do end up dying, that they won't be able to tell that it's you.

Your stop's almost here. You lean over to your right to pull the Stop cable. But as you slide your phone back into a jogger's armband pouch wrapped around your other arm, things start to finally get interesting.

The sound of the bus stopping at Dolores instead of Church, followed by a hiss and the front door opening means someone is about to get on or off, since you're not nearly at the end of the line. You glance up and you can see someone boarding at the stop just around the block from the Church Street Safeway. And not just anybody. His green skin is visible from all the way back, and the bus driver doesn't seem to mind at all as he pays his fare. He's already got one freak on his bus tonight, what's another for good measure?

The green man's holding a Safeway bag close to him, almost like he didn't know how to hold a wriggler but was trying his damndest anyway. If he wasn't clearly one of those eirite 'leprechauns,' you'd think he'd look almost adorable in that baggy blue hoodie and cargo pants of his and that...

You squint as he timidly approaches you and his choice of fashion accessory catches your eyes.

Nah, it can't actually be, can it?

That vivid royal blue top hat with a big number 2 stitched onto it in fancy cursive somehow reminds you of Creeper Number One back at Pier 43, even though the two are clearly not alike in any way. Apart from their skin and alien-like appearances. And numbered hats.

You suddenly make the connection to Uroboros' mention of that little private criminal club of supervillains, but the mention is about as deep as that connection goes. As such, you straighten up, pull your blackphone back out and hope specifically that #2 is not (nearly as?) creepy as his numeral predecessor.

"Oh, I'm sorry." he feebly almost-mumbles to himself, distracting you from your squint before taking a seat to your left, a couple rows in front. He then sits there, hunched and staring forward, not doing anything.

You alternate glances between your phone and this new passenger as the bus continues to plod westward, trying to record as much of his identity as you can - which isn't much. The eirite seems to have dissolved any feature that would have even identified him as either human or troll - such as his ears and nose - into whatever the hell kind of material that his skin is made of. All you can tell is that he's fairly short, with sedentary plumpness about him. Nothing that could at least apparently identify him as a member of a "private collection of supervillains" apart from the hat.

The temptation for you to get the fuck out is already planted the moment you recognize the number on his hat, and grows with every glance you throw at him and his bag along with every possible permutation of his identity, motives, and how that links to how you kicked the tar out of #1 weeks ago. It could be anything from mere coincidence that you two ended up on the same mode of transportation - as much as he could be a disposable clone carrying a high explosive that could take you out before you become some kind of threat to the local crime syndicates, although what the School of Merman would want to do with eirite addicts remains beyond you.

He could also have simply been scouting out the San Francisco Mint just up the nearby hill.

These possibilities are also the reason you eventually decide stay on the bus as it crosses the Divisadero and into the quieter residential areas facing the Pacific. The only outward signs of these thoughts are your increasingly frantic pace of your fingers swiping across apps, often into apps you didn't know you had, which you close immediately only to fall back into.

It's not like a superhero to flee in the face of imminent danger...right?

* * *

**40th and Judah**  
**15 minutes later**

You're very nearly to the end of the line and you think you might have developed the first sign of tendonitis the moment the bus crosses into Sunset. Like the light rail trains that ply this route's equivalent in the waking hours, the bus is going to have to let all its passengers out right before 48th and the Great Highway. Both you and the bus' only passenger will have to disembark, which means you'll still be paying attention to him until you decide to leave him.

You've been keeping at least a half-glance on the bus' only other passenger since Church Street and you would normally count yourself lucky that he hasn't stared back unlike the bus driver, who seems to have at least built up a tolerance for all the shifts he's pulled since he got assigned to the Owl routes.

However, Blue Number Two hasn't looked like he's moved _at all_ since he sat down. As in not just he hasn't gotten out of or shifted in his seat, he quite literally seems to have been petrified where he sat. Maybe that's what happens to an eirite user when he dies, in which case you'd rather not receive the blame for it like any of the possible biker deaths in the near future.

It's when you hit 39th that he finally shows signs of actual life.

"Oh no...this is the wrong bus," he suddenly exclaims worriedly, looking around. "Oh no, oh no oh no!"

You flinch a little, your mind running through all kinds of possible intent before realizing that this poor soul could quite simply be just plain lost. Or just unaware of where he is, which may or may not be an effect of the eirite crystal that he probably has on his person.

Time for some community service. You holster your phone and pull the Stop cable before he does, and the bus eases to a stop in front of a convenience store between 45th and 46th Avenue. You exit out the rear-most door, taking care that you don't trip on the narrow steps, while Blue Two slowly makes his way down the middle exit.

"Hey, uh..." you begin, facing him as his sneakers touch the concrete. "D'ya need help gettin' home?"

"Oh, thank you for the offer, but I think I can get home by myself," he replies slowly and carefully in a way that sounds almost achingly polite.

_Wwelp._ The rejection seems almost perfectly timed with the bus driving off behind you.

You'd press the offer further, you really would. But his potential affiliation to the Felt Syndicate makes it much easier for you not to. You look down at the sidewalk, hands on hips and sigh regretfully because that doesn't change the fact that you're now stuck about a mile and a half north of your current place of semi-residence (to say nothing of your actual place of residence across Lake Merced) and need to get there this late at night. Now it's just you, your thoughts, and the buzzing sound of a nearby streetlight.

You decide whether to wait around for the N-Owl to pick you up on the little concrete island one intersection back up Judah Street from the store. Superheroes aren't supposed to _walk_ that far, why do you think they fly? Or failing that, have awesome, badass cruisers to jet around in?

Then again, Sunset is one of the nicer neighborhoods in the city. You could probably ring up an UberX to take you back in style, although there's still that driver's reaction to deal with.

You take a long look down the short distance toward the N-Owl's terminus, one stop after a pair of beachside motels and a hole-in-the-wall sports bar with a couple of patrons milling outside.

You straighten out your posture and enter the store, your heels clacking equally prominently from the pavement to the linoleum. The clerk gives you a suspicious-curious look that you figure was probably the same as the one he gave Blue Two, who appears to be browsing the wall coolers for something to drink as well. It's probably not a coincidence that it's also the same look the bus driver gave the both of you as well, but you've gotten worse reactions for less-sophisticated outfits than this.

The store's condition is reflective of the current state of Inner and Outer Sunset as of late. A few patches of extreme cleanliness in half-heartedly strategic places to try to distract from the depressively slight decay. But at least all the lights are on, and the beverages in the wall-embedded refrigerators are still cold, and the cheap convenience store comfort foods are warm under their lights.

It'll still be a couple of minutes before the bus makes its way up here, so you might as well get some kind of brand-name caffeine-laced liquid to keep you awake long enough to decide how you're getting back home. Surely Skyhorsedad won't get suspicious over a $5 transaction at a convenience store...right? The thought that he actually could causes you feel a little rumble in your insides as well - but you can hold that until you get back to your Tupperware-enclosed leftovers in the mealvault you keep at HQ.

But as you pass the first aisle toward the coolers, that rumbling intensifies to the point that you can feel it happening outside your body. You turn around and you realize you're not hungry.

Your eyes suddenly widen and you crouch a little just under the top of the aisle to avoid ending up in the line of sight of two more new arrivals to the store.

Two motorcycles and their riders have parked in front of the entrance. Two black chopper-type motorcycles whose riders - both human of varying concentrations of melanin - are wearing leather jackets, solid-color bandanas and branded denim under their black 3/4-face helmets as they throw the doors open with one hand each and reaching into their jackets with their other hands and very ill intent. You can tell they're taller than you - probably close to six feet each - because convenience stores like these have measuring tape stripes glued to the doors for reasons related to the things that are about to happen.

Forget connections to ex-human/ex-troll crime syndicates. You make the connection that the way these guys approached the joint, they're probably looking to avenge their fallen comrades on _you_. To make matters worse, there's only one way out and it's in their line of sight unless one of these coolers is empty and loaded from the back because there's no way you'll be able to pull out racks of shitty beer before you get forked and fried with a hot lead injection.

"All right motherfuckers, you know what the fuck this is," the slightly taller human declares, pulling out what appears to be a Glock-shaped pistol with an extended magazine (and you will _personally_ wand-whip anyone who uses the term interchangeably with 'clip') and seeming to loosely snap-aim it between the few sentient life-forms in the store visible from above the aisle, you included. "Get the fuck on the floor and give us your cash and valuables. First person to call the cops gets all of you clipped."

The clerk gasps and chokes down a scream as his hands shoot up by reflex. It's actually what he's trained to do in all the long early-2000s era videos that he's required to watch for training. A couple local residents who wandered out of their residences for late night munchies also drop to the ground, face down.

"You!" the second human shouts, wielding an equally-formidable but somewhat more dignified 1911, "Everything in the register, make it quick, chop chop."

The clerk nods and tries to work the No Sale function to get both the tills open, but the keypads on these new registers are all on an LCD screen and he's missing buttons left and right. Yet while that gunman doesn't seem to mind too much. No, it's the other gunman that apparently minds someone who hasn't dropped to the floor.

The little green man with the Blue Number Two hat is frozen in place again, clutching a bottle of unsweetened tea he got from the closest cooler to the exit. He's certainly not dropping to the floor.

"The fuck did I say, leprechaun?" #2 Gunman Without Hat shouts quite verbosely at #2 With Hat, "Get on the fucking floor!"

There's absolutely no response from him despite the biker clearly towering over him. His face seems to be a blank stare up at the greaser throwback almost as if he's literally left his own body hoping to wait it out.

Any moment now you will witness someone being shot point blank in the face before your inevitable humiliation.

You stand up, step away from the aisle so you are in full view of the two gunmen, draw the CEDPDW from your holster and point it at the guy pointing his gun at Blue Number Two.

"Back awway from the green man an' I w-won't havve t' maim you!" Whatever confidence you managed to whip up to make that shakily bold declaration dissipated almost completely once you noticed the gangster was now pointing his Glock at you.

"Maim me, with that?" the first human laughs. "Little fucking toy wand that'll blink shit at me?"

"I'm...I'm givvin you till the count'a three-"

"Or what?" the gunman's initial entertained annoyance turns almost to a fury that allows you to see your scared face in his eyes. The gun is pointed somewhere between your jaw and your solar plexus and you don't have any actual armor on you. If it blows out your gills or vital organs, your final thoughts will be that Skyhorsedad will not attend the funeral of someone who would be found dead in drag in a convenience store. "What're you gonna do? Huh?"

He's practically striding around the corner to the aisle you're in, holding the gun with one hand at that slight downward angle intended to force a person to their knees. He also has a point.

What _are_ you going to do? You're sweating more bullets than his gun's magazine as you slide your finger up the wand's switch to turn it on.

He'll probably shoot you after he's got you begging anyway. Or worse, you'll probably take a loadgaper in your outfit out of fear and then he'll laugh at you and then shoot you if he's merciful enough to somehow link you to the cliffside chase.

That said, there's only one thing you can really do now to avoid such a fate.

The moment you fire your wand, no matter how pitiful you are fully expecting the blast to be, there is no turning back.

**== > Turn back from what?**

* * *

**Rodeo Drive**  
**Los Angeles, CA**

**Years ago, but not too many...**

It was a beautiful sunny early autumn day in the City of Angels and All Their Wrath when you threw Erigami's debutante party. It wasn't the most original of names, per se, but you read somewhere that apparently the "-gami" suffix refers to something being a god and you immediately figured that would help develop your new supervillain mythos. Plus, you can drop the alias once you get notorious enough to let Fef know it's you doing all this for her.

You take a deep breath as you ease your pearl-white Lamborghini Huracan onto Rodeo Drive, parking it at the closest available spot to the jewelry store - about 5 seconds at a weighted jog. You calculate it'll probably go up to 10 with what you'll be carrying out from the jewelry store. It's a warm-enough day out and you knew were gonna bake like a filet if you stayed out too long in what you're wearing, so you have the air conditioner turned all the way on until the motor goes off. There is a nice breeze greeting you as you carefully step out, making sure not to snag anything.

Your disposable sports car cost you just into the six digits with all the amenities you had to have for the short time you were expected to own it, but you could write it off as a belated Sweet Seven-Sweeps present to yourself.

Naturally, you draw the attention of the guard as you approach, tuxedo, trilby, cape and all. Only one of them today in the middle of the week, just as you observed. And that's not mentioning all the other tourists and well-off shoppers looking for little trinkets for their collections or Instagram logs. The guard, a very-well-built cerulean in a suit likely bought from a charity shop with what appear to be badge-shaped horns, raises an eyebrow and gives you a curious-suspicious look as he pulls open one of the glass doors open for you from the inside, allowing you to stroll past the carefully-arranged racks of fine jewelry toward the receptionist in the center.

You've memorized the layout of the store from all the times you've been here. You know which cameras there are and where to face to hide what parts of your face aren't already obscured by your trilby's rim and the eye mask, without looking suspicious.

"Can I help you, sir?" she begins with a cheery smile that matches her undeserving ochre eyes.

You clear your throat, remembering just in time that you don't want her to realize it's you from your voice.

You immediately draw your wand and point it right between the eyes. "Yes, you can."

"Uh, sir?" she asks, only the faintest hint of fear under the clearly awkward facial expression as she slowly and half-heartedly raises her hands to her shoulders, "What are you going to do with that?"

The guard is slowly walking up to you, very likely to politely ask you not to not make the poor receptionist feel awkward. At the worst, he'll probably and somewhat sternly ask you to leave, probably with a hand on your shoulder.

The moment you turn around and fire, there is no turning back.

**== >** **FILE END**


	9. ==> FILE 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Warning: This chapter contains a depiction of a suicide attempt. If you feel this can disturb you, stop at "it'll be a motorcycle accident" then use your browser's find function to skip to "43rd & Taraval."**
> 
>  
> 
> We now return you to your irregularly scheduled superheroing.

**== > FILE OPEN**

**== > Eridan: Be the supervillain you were destined to be.**

**Santa Monica Pier**  
**Santa Monica, CA**  
**Years Ago, But Too Few For You To Bear**

_"Get the fuck off'a me!"_

You are Eridan Ampora, you are supposed to be destined to be Erigami and until about 10 minutes ago you thought you had it all figured out. Today was supposed to be your grand debut as a supervillain. You had everything planned out from the initial holdup to the getaway to counting out your haul for distribution. You hit the jewelry store, snatched up about 2 million smackers' worth of fancy metals and shiny stones, and made your way out of there in a 'disposable' sports car that could easily outrun LA's finest even in broad daylight.

"Jiminy- you're barely even eight and a half! Look, just say you're sorry and we can work it out so you don't have to end up in juvie."

But here you are, being pinned in a leglock face down on boiling hot pavement in a Santa Monica Pier parking lot in front of a crowd by a superhero whose physical prime left as early and quickly as it came.

Talk about unconscionable failure.

Infernal Rage isn't even that high up on the otherwise very visible superhero pantheon of the Los Angeles metropolitan area. He's a 1970s has-been in both mind _and_ body trying to stay relevant by adopting a more 1990s eco-trendy persona, and it's not even the 1990s anymore. He's still in what is likely the same bright multi-shaded orange tights he put on way back when he first started superheroing, and the gel that holds up his pompadour probably lasts longer than your own spawn sibling's.

But somehow, he managed to figure you all out. First, your jewelry store's silent alarm happened to be on his patrol route. Then he caught up to your getaway vehicle because there was just enough traffic on the highway to keep you from truly flooring it. Your outfit isn't built for running all the way to Orange County like a landdweller.

You tried to take a detour downtown, but another one of your fatal strategic mistakes was buying a getaway car that stood the fuck out like a jaundiced finger instead of something a little more generic. After your internal GPS fizzled, you 10-50'd at the foot of Santa Monica's legendary Pleasure Pier and in one last futile attempt at sprinting to the water, made it out to a parking lot where he finally snagged you _BY YOUR GOGDAMN CAPE_ too far from even the sand. Your energy-discharging wand didn't stand a chance in his grip after several flailing, missed attempts at directed energy retaliation that only resulted in property destruction and disfiguration.

"Please...I'm sorry...just..." Violet tears stream down your contorted face like a Studio Ghibli movie.

And that's when things somehow get even worse.

This frat-bro-looking beachgoing human in hip-hop branded swimshorts gets up to within 2 feet of what's going on and shouts "Say cheese motherfucker! Worldstar!" as he holds something up to your face. A small plastic device.

Your indignity has been captured on the lowest form of portable communication device - a flip phone. Like one you can find at a drug store, paid in cash for contracts by the month. In 320 by 240 motion JPEG. Gog knows how many other members of the crowd want to say they've witnessed some real-life superheroing at this point in their otherwise uneventful lives and capture that too in better resolution.

Yep, it's definitely all over, including the crying. Especially when the heat and the pressure of having an aging superhero on your back is finally getting to your gills. Your vision blurs, the sirens on the approaching LAPD and EMT vehicles like so many glittering, mocking rubies and sapphires. Not like the literal ones you were close enough to getting away with.

"Sir, please stop filming!" Infernal Rage declares, to which the frat bro shrugs it off.

"Can't...can't breathe..."

"Nah man, I can't believe Infernal Rage is back!"

"As flattering as that is, good sir, this youngster doesn't need any more humiliation."

The lies couldn't be any more transparent. You're deserving everything you get right now. You deserved all the humiliation you did for not living up to your company's and lusus' expectations. You deserve this humiliation for trying to strike out on your own, the only way you knew how. You deserved to go out with the same kind of dramatic flair with which you entered. And you'll deserve everything that you've got coming to you once the day is out.

Your vision eventually goes white as you pass out. The last things you hear are Infernal Rage's pleas for you to wake up, wondering if he did grapple a teenager too hard.

When you regain consciousness in a UCLA Hospital bed with a bored LAPD officer sitting beside you making sure you don't try to escape, the only thing you can think about is how much worse it could _still_ get.

Somehow, it really does get that bad, but it doesn't make it any less internally painful.

When you do eventually get out a few days later, Infernal Rage has the raw, human _gall_ to have you not only return every last stolen item in person but also get you off scot free...by having you apologize to the jewelry store management in front of _every major live TV network_ in Southern California.

And that's the insult on top of the injury. The injury of all the videos, all the hits on all the websites showing him subduing your bawling attempt at supervillainy, and all the bruises and sprains you sustained when he caught you.

Despite all this, none of it pales to what you _know_ Skyhorsedad is going to do to you as you stare into the funneling abyss of each individual TV camera. Somewhere on the other side of this transmitted humiliation, he watches. Watches and disapproves in silence deadlier than his angry neighing. He's probably already watched all those videos online multiple times and shared it with company brass as you speak out word for sputtering, sniveling word, trying not to sweat in the plain formals you're wearing for this kangaroo court press conference.

He's not in the SUV that quietly pulls up to the back entrance of the mall to avoid the small flock of reporters. But his lack of presence is damning. You know you're in for more than a stern fatherly talk of disappointment when you get back home. You know he's already calling the perpetually "interim" board in Trieste about setting up the birthing vats for another heir and all kinds of lawyers to set up the legal separation process as well as trying to figure out how to mitigate the potential loss of groundbreaking energy-discharging technology to someone who might pick up the scraps of their prized weapon that isn't some minimum-wage street sweeper.

You're still not sure how he manages to do all that without any actual hands to use, but now that is completely beside the point.

You _know_ he never really cared about you more than you were supposed to be a backup successor at best. For a while, you enjoyed it, sated your inadequacy with material things and yearnings. But it was never enough. Not when the things and people you truly wanted were out of your reach. So you resolved to take them on your own.

And this is where you ended up. Honestly, you'd really have preferred if it Infernal Rage broke your wand and _then_ broke _you_ in half on the West Coaster rails like the more edgy Paul Verhoeven-esque superheroes of the 1980s did to more deserving supervillains. (You have this _slightly_ irrational fear about dying by being torn in two, but you have bigger fears to dwell on right now.)

The fact however remains that you weren't worthy enough to deserve quick death. You are the unconscionable failure. It's you. And it's the only thought going through your head as Infernal rage pats you on the shoulder and thanks you quite verbally for your change of heart, expressing with equal verbosity that you'll get the help you need.

You're practically numb by the time a pair of standard-issue LAPD beat cops escort you through the back rooms into the SUV waiting for you so Infernal Rage can bashfully read out his award show-esque thank yous while smiling those artificially-whitened dentures of his.

Skyhorsedad isn't there to meet you at the mansion. He doesn't have to be. And that doesn't matter to you, as you run right up to the bathroom, all the tears you held back in the hospital finally coming out as you can't even bring yourself to say your goodbyes to the spoiled existence you've known growing up while you're slumped over the sink for the next hour.

**== > Okay this is getting depressing. Can we get back to the present day now?**

* * *

**45th & Judah  
San Francisco, CA**  
**Present Day**

It is now the present day, you are still currently Eridan "Dauphine" Ampora (nee Erigami) and although it is air-conditioned inside this time of night, you still feel like you're being fried against pavement. Although you could say you're in a significantly better situation in life (per se) than you were in your final months in Southern California, you must add the caveat that such benefits are much, much more precariously perched above the crevasse that is a protracted, violent death. All things considered though, you'd still take violent quick death over disowning any day of the goddamn perigee.

Not that it makes the possibility of protracted, violent death less harrowing in itself, given the situation you are currently in.

Two bikers entered this convenience store barely a couple of minutes ago with the intent to rob it and everyone in it. You and a person that is supposed to be some eirite-charged supervillain were almost caught in the crossfire until you took out a wa- excuse you,  _concentrated energy-discharging personal defense weapon_ that had been supposedly de-charged to be no more than a glorified blinker. In your desire not to undergo an _immediately_ protracted violent death, you hastily discharged that personal defense weapon's concentrated energy into a biker pointing a Glock at you.

That biker now writhes on the ground, clutching what are at least second-degree burns on his hand and leather practically seared to his arm as your wand smokes. His gun fell to the ground and discharged a bullet up into the ceiling. You're safe until his accomplice decides to smoke you in retaliation.

But that's not the only thing that's smoking. There appears to be glowing steam now emanating from your left arm as you point the wand at the other biker. A similar will o' the wisp smoke to when you fended off those other crooks of a different affiliation at Pier 43 (and a half) some weeks ago. You're just staring at it in shock, thankful somewhere deep inside your internal inferno that it's finally back but surprised over the conditions required to cause it to happen.

"Are you going to rob me too?!" the clerk suddenly blurts out. You reflexively point your wand at him, and in that moment of distraction the other biker proceeds to exit out the door with an almost shoulder-charge in fright.

It is only starting to register on your still-shocked face that you're, well, still pretty fucking scared. The clerk probably already pulled the silent alarm and the cops are already on their way. Once they notice an androgynous seadweller with a clearly lethal wand and/or with Blue Two here, the Scuds are gonna be right behind them and then it won't be just the biker's corpse they'll be dragging out of the building.

You switch off the wand and holster it shakily, although your left arm continues to wisp.

"Come on, w-we gotta get you outta here," you turn and say to Blue Two, who is still petrified in place again. "Hey! What are you-"

"Oh!" Blue Two snaps back into life like he just came off some really bad internet lag. "Sorry. Yes, we should abscond."

It has also registered in your mind ahead of his awakening that you cannot abscond dressed like _this_ on foot pulling a leprechaun behind you. You'll be Scud fodder on some poorly-tended lawn before you've even made it to Kirkham. Or Scud fodder in front of a bar before you make it to Ocean Beach. Or Scud fodder on the neglected islands dividing Sunset Boulevard.

"W-we'll take the other bike," you stammer as you holster the wand, crouch and pilfer the downed biker for his keys. Fortunately, they're in his one of his front jacket pockets. You scoop those up into your left hand - but not before noticing they're for a Harley-Davidson - and quickly locate the fallen gun with the other.

Compared to your wand the Glock feels like a thick, dark metallic lump, even though its destructive power is fully guaranteed regardless of who pulls the trigger. You fidget to get the safety back on as you walk over the counter, and then lay it on the reinforced plastic window above the California Lotto scratch tickets. The gun makes a heavy clack when you place it on the counter.

"Here, just make sure he doesn't get up, okay?" Probably not the best words to say, but you don't have more than a moment to think up a better line before you head to the door and stop as you prop it ajar.

You stop specifically because Blue Two seems to be very gingerly trying to trod around the fallen and pained biker with his worn (and matching!) blue sneakers.

"You comin' or w-what!?" you suddenly shout.

"C-coming!" Blue Two slowly jogs toward you, which is literally the fastest you've seen him moving. He does take a few seconds however to fish out a $5 bill and plop it on the counter next to the gun before catching up.

The other biker has already ridden off. Inner and Outer Sunset might be a giant grid of numbered streets and row houses bisected by the alphabet from J through Sloat, but there's no way you can tell which way he headed with his exhaust echoing between the houses and no time to try to figure it out.

Fortunately for the two of you, the 'other bike' is a black, late model Harley-Davidson XL Sportster with a raised backrest for two. In your rush you sling yourself over the rather comfortable faux-leather seat and fiddle the keys into the ignition. The bike rumbles back to life with a kick of the accelerator pedal, a longing engine growl for its separated comrade.

"Just head south!" Number 2 tells you right before you gun the throttle. You swerve the bike around and out onto the street rather than take precious seconds trying to back it up. You're on Judah facing the beach, but you turn left onto 46th and dart southward into the grid.

He's clinging to you the whole way, one hand around you and one hand presumably holding his hat in place. You can feel his warmth through your bodysuit as he leans forward onto you. It's a platonic warmth, and you can tell this by the fact that you do not feel anything unwelcome trying to nudge its way into your wastechute gap.

You don't know how far south you're going, literally and metaphorically. For all you know he might have just taken you hostage and is bringing you over to their HQ for a fate worse than death by Scud. Rowhouse after quietly lit townhouse after intersection goes by. Noriega, Ortega, Pacheco, Quintara, and so on pass by once again he doesn't seem to be responding to you if anything. But you know by the warmth that at least he's alive. Or at least vegetative.

And that maybe saving his life from some bikers will ingratiate you into his clique.

You chuckle to try to dispel your thoughts. If _this_ is how you become a supervillain, without all the dramatic fanfare of your crash and burn attempt, then maybe this was how it was meant to be. And then you realize you're not wearing a helmet and inwardly curse yourself again.

It's almost as funny that if it isn't the SuperCrime Unit's Deployment squads or the School of Mermen or the Felt or a prescription drug overdose that kill you tonight, it'll be a motorcycle accident.

**== > Wait, did you say drug overdose?**

* * *

**Beverly Hills, CA**  
**Years Ago, at the edge of the abyss...**

You are now one of the Ampora family's squadron of housekeepers, in an always-properly-ironed light lavender uniform and standard carpet-friendly flip-flops, and you are knocking on his door, telling him to come down to dinner in homely yet firm, accented but TOEFL-certified English.

He hasn't come out of his room much ever since he made a fool of himself at Santa Monica. Yes, you're allowed to think that, after all everyone on the internet as well as his caretaker lusus have accepted it as well. And you and everyone else in the staff have viewed his video during your downtime, on your own individual smartphones. Yes, individual smartphones, one of the many perks of doing a good job for people who ensure there's food on the table for you and your kids. Still, you might have worked your way up into the "big leagues" of housekeeping since you came here with your family from across the Pacific a couple decades ago, but you've still got to keep close knit and have a giggle aside with your fellow squadmates when you can.

You knock and call him again. He isn't responding. _Maybe he's not in there right now_...is your first thought.

But you know he's barely left his room since he got discharged from the hospital and apologized for trying to run around in a costume. When he did he was shambling about like a ghast, completely subservient with little more than a grunt (or were those moans?) when you politely asked him to move out of the way from where he was randomly standing whenever you or someone else had to clean at his spot. When he did eat he always did so with a pallor that inferred that the food was never good enough - and at the same time, he'd eat virtually whatever edible was on his plate without any fuss.

This was good for the staff compared to his other moods. He's had fits of rage before, typical Beverly Hills spoiled kid types of rage. But his lusus keeps his weapons locked away, and in the rare instance that someone does suffer an injury from it, he is also extremely generous when it comes to his severance packages.

You slowly open the door, but a small peek through an ajar gap turns into the door wide open, a muffled expression of surprise in your native tongue and your eyes almost bugging out from their sockets as your jaw drops.

There is a bottle of prescription anti-depressants spilled out across the carpet. This isn't the first time you've found them like that. You found bottles in various conditions with contents of various colors all over his room after his would-be matesprit broke up with him for reasons you and the rest of the staff have to live with.

This _is_ the first time you've found him looking pale as one of those cheesy rainbow drinker novel vampires, sprawled out and barely conscious on his bed in his underwear, eyes glazed over as he clings to a pillow.

==> **Whoa, whoa. Okay, we get the point. Let's get back to Dauphine.  
**

* * *

**43rd & Taraval**  
**Present Day**

"Left here!" Blue Two shouts above the motorcycle's engine, snapping out of his trance and snapping you out of your cruising trance.

You're back to being Dauphine driving a stolen motorcycle down the empty late-night streets of the Sunset District, and you're about to hit Taraval. As in, turn right and you'll drive right up to your not-so-secret headquarters on Taraval. At least he can't see you suddenly surprised as you slow up to the Stop sign and then ease the Harley-Davidson left and away from the beach. You are shivering a bit, but then again you have been cruising against the evening Pacific breeze now at your back as you cruise up the incline, back toward Sunset. The further away he asks you to drop him off from the compound, the better.

Of course, it doesn't get that much better.

"...and left here again!" he adds a few blocks up, before pointing to a white and beige two-story apartment block reminiscent of a motel with the main entrances on balconies facing out onto its parking lot. "There's my place, over by the corner."

You ease the bike to a stop at the sidewalk across the street from the building, cutting off the motor and lowering the kickstand. You're already breaking a multitude of laws as you are right now, being a superhero driving without proper safety gear and all, you might as well not add another one to that resume. Blue Two almost slumps off the bike, getting one foot down before the other as he dismounts the seat. He checks his hoodie pocket and withdraws that bottle of iced tea from earlier as well.

"You need me to w-walk you in?" you ask, exhausted.

"Oh no, it's fine," Blue Two says calmly, smiling almost genuinely before looking to the side bashfully. "Hey and...um...thanks."

"Yeah...sure," you reply, before starting the engine again. "I...w-wait, weren't you carrying some groceries earlier?"

Blue Two comes to that realization as well. He probably dropped them when the robbery started, and they're probably being gathered up as evidence as you speak. "Oh...my."

"Y'knoww w-what, I-" You cut yourself off not long after cutting him off, and it feels awkward. Giving your parting line to someone you just saved, even if he is _allegedly_ a supervillain, is much easier watched than actually said. "I could go get them-"

"No! It's okay, I'd keep my life over some groceries," Blue Two chuckles bashfully. "Do you need a place to keep the bike though? Do you live nearby?"

"Ye- I mean no, I um...knoww a place."

"Well, okay then," he replies gratefully before crossing the street back to his place, "Take care of yourself, okay?"

"I w-will, thanks," you say and wave back before easing the bike away from the sidewalk and up 43rd.

You turn right onto Santiago and start checking your rear view mirrors at every intersection to see if someone's following you.

**== > Felt: Follow Dauphine.**

* * *

**23XX 43rd Avenue  
30 seconds** **later**

You cannot currently follow that mysterious purple seadweller that saved you from those bikers because you're currently thankful to have lived through the last half hour. You might be part of the Felt Primary but any criminal worth their weight in eirite knows they're not exempt from the possibility of spontaneous, unrelated death. You take your time going up the stairs, to make sure you've got your internal rhythm back in order from having to suddenly use your powers in the field.

"Doze! What the fuck happened?!" When you open the door with your own keys and enter without a grocery bag, Itchy instantaneously stands up from his latest rounds of FPSes in the dark wearing only boxer-briefs.

"It's funny, actually..." you reply, scratching your bald head as you turn on the light "I stopped at a store to get a drink, but..."

"But-what?" With the light on and you not up close as you normally would be when he's almost naked like he is, you can see how lithe his green figure is.

"But some bikers decided to rob the store." Itchy's expression goes from concerned to shocked, to which you already have a response. "I got saved though! It's okay!"

"Ugh-good. Okay. Who saved ya?" Your matesprit seems to have the faintest idea of who it was, and it's not in a good way.

"This costumed girl troll. At least I think she identified as one, but I never asked, her body seemed to be more aligned to male though," you explain, your thoughts drifting a little as you twist open the cap of the iced tea and take a sip. It hasn't gotten too warm despite being nestled between you, your mysterious rescuer, and your layers of clothing. "Purple outfit. Seaborne theme."

"Did you say purple...crossdressing...seatroll?!" Itchy's fingers curl as he brings his hands up to the side of his head. Whatever image that invoked in him is powerful enough for him to recoil and fall back onto the couch. You hastily put the iced tea down on the coffee table in front and sit him down before you by his side.

"Is there something wrong!?"

"Brezen-Maernt," he suddenly replies, in that extra quickness of speech he gets whenever he's disturbed. "That guy that kicked my ass a while back. That's him!"

"Itch, you've had too much 5-hour tonight!" you reply worriedly.

"No, that's gotta be him. Gotta-call-up-the-techies and have them find him..." Itchy continues, starting to tremble before you start shoosh-papping him.

"Come on, Itch, it's okay. It's not like she's after us," you say softly, his trembling canceling out as you dial up your power only slightly. "She already saved both our lives, okay?"

You probably won't and say you did look for Brezen or whoever that mysterious seadweller is just to sate him. If whoever saved you actually did was actually absent-minded enough to carry ID on them (and you'll default to "them" in the singular until you can actually get their pronouns), they almost certainly would not carry one with their actual name on it. That would be a highly unconscionable mistake.

And in any case, if that person really was trying to be a superhero in _this_ city, they certainly don't seem to know of your affiliation. At least not overtly enough to want to bring down the authorities on you, warranting a legal response that will get you free and inevitably end in their own demise.

"Ugh-okay...fine." Itchy stammers as he calms down. "Did you at least catch those bikers' colors?"

You recall catching a glimpse of the patch on the back of the bikers' jackets, and the words inked into them.

"The Mermen. I think they're a biker gang from Nevada," you recall vaguely, looking downward as you do. "I don't know what they're doing this far out of their turf though. I should call Crow."

"Yeah, whenever it gets nighttime wherever he's at." Itchy sputters and leans back, letting his neck crane backwards over the back of the couch. "Hey...can I have some of what you're drinkin'?"

"Sure, sure." As you continue to shooshpap him, you remind yourself to be grateful you escaped with this new information. And you hope that gratefulness is all there will be between you and this Brezen Maernt character.

**== > Doze: Make the call.**

* * *

**Fort Funston  
20 minutes later**

You are now Dauphine again, and you are neither making nor receiving a call. In fact, you are actually kinda chilly, your eyes drying from the air.

You are currently in a forced state of semi-hiding, huddling behind your brand-new-ish motorcycle with your hands clasped over your head and around your horn-guards. You're parked in the windswept tall grass just off the paths near Fort Funston, on the other side of Skyline Boulevard to Lake Merced, hopefully out of sight from the traffic thanks to the concealment of the fog rolling in. Despite you checking your rear views at virtually every intersection since you dropped your recently-saved supervillain off at his house (or headquarters?) nobody seems to have followed you here, which you hope is a good thing.

If Blue Two alerted Yellow One - although you have no idea what happened to _him_ after you kicked his (and a Midnight Crew posse's collective) wastechute - then he probably would have flash-stepped (or flash-sat?) onto your bike and pickpocketed you for more than your fake IDs before you passed the first stop sign. Or even worse, he might have already pried around your new compound and there's a Felt crew stripping it bare right now for tech secrets and blackmail.

Fuck. You really, _really_ need to talk to someone about this. But who exactly does a lone wolf superhero turn to in a city where the only still-living superhero is the one who chooses to find you rather than the other way around? Maybe you should plan better, you think to yourself as you continue to shiver. You've always been good at planning but execution? Well, you know you weren't _that_ good at that either. At least not beyond the first stages. The thrill and overall niceties of actually saving someone from certain death is once again being overwhelmed by guilt and paranoia about the future. And it's also fucking cold out.

Is this what you really wanted in the end?

"Fuck!"

You get the whole word screamed out from your throat with your fangs bared and spitting some saliva into your bandana before you cut yourself off. You immediately turn around and peer up across the bike's seat to see if anyone heard that. And either way, you're not going to stick around to find out.

You get up, brush the sand off of your suit before climbing back on the bike and starting it up again, its roar muffled by the high tide washing up against the shore. You know you've got to get rid of it, but you can't just return it to a precinct now that you're on the SuperCrime Unit's hit list. That leaves either your compound or your penthouse garage, both of which you know Skyhorsedad has thoroughly infiltrated.

As the Harley-Davidson rolls up the path back to the road, your mind finally stumbles upon a compromise. You'll leave the bike "abandoned" somewhere by the lake or one of the golf courses and then call the cops on it while you stroll and/or swim right back to your compound. Dauphine disappears back into the ocean, at least one more biker is dragged off for interrogation while looking the wrong way from you, and you'll be safe at home in Parkmerced, warm and dry and wondering how to deal with your newfound Felt semi-affiliation.

You smile and nod your head, and hope you don't get into an accident before you get to a drop spot because you're still not wearing your helmet.

And then, about 50 feet before the wheels make contact with the parking lot concrete, you clench your fists on the brakes to avoid a broadside collision with an armored high-performance sedan that has cut you off. Specifically, an all-matte-black high performance black sedan with all-red blinkers activated on the roof, reinforced grills over the windows and the letters S-C-U in block font on its doors.

Wwelp.

You feel the sickeningly cold chill of truly certain death fill your body like a damp rag under a faucet. You can feel yourself crying and laughing at the same time as you see the car's single occupant open the door, step out and...

**== > And what!?**

**[FILE END]**


	10. ==> FILE 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm prepared for this / I never shoot to miss / But I feel like a storm is coming / If I'm gonna make it through the day / and there's no more use in running / This is something I've got to face" - Troll Rick Ross, "A Long and Lasting Love" from the soundtrack of _Big Grams_ (1979)

**== > Eridan: Face your fate.**

**San Francisco International Airport**  
**Terminal 3**  
**Months Ago, but Not Too Many**

_"Attention all passengers on Philippine Airlines flight 104 to Manila via Honolulu..."_

You're standing on the sidewalk just outside the terminal on a typically cold and typically really breezy night in the Bay Area alongside other landdwellers waiting for their rides to show up too. Your first class flight from LAX went by quick enough when you had a row all to yourself to curl up by the window seat. Your thick sweater, striped pants and beloved scarf keep you from shivering conspicously as you wait for your ride to pick you up. But even if your physical body is warm, the one thing keeping that thin ember of hope in your heart from snuffing itself out in the endlessly cold vortex of your soul is the knowledge that somehow, Cronus fucked up worse than you did.

Yes, despite your internationally-televised humiliation at the hands of a third-tier superhero and its establishment as one of the year's viral hits, your "parent" company has actually found a compelling reason _not_ to disown you and leave you to be ground into chum on the streets.

That reason was Cronus' species dysphoria.

You knew that species dysphoria was a thing that wasn't just relegated to obscure attention-seeking corners of the internet, but you also knew that Cronus was exactly _that_ type of attention-seeker that perpetuates their stigmas as obscure "internet diseases." To make many long arguments short, what started out as attention-seeking blogging and re-bubbling cascaded into his suddenly absconding into Nevada, which then forced them to keep you around because the floundering global economy is somehow affecting Atlantis hard enough that they probably cannot afford to vat-grow another Ampora heir. Either that or if spawning Cronus and you in that sequence showed the degradation that results from trying to use the same "elite" DNA to make the ideal heir, a third might end up so painfully malformed that it would have to be culled at birth.

Therein of course lies the catch that not only affects recent events but the same catch that came for everything positive you have ever experienced: you are existing right now because forces more powerful than you are forced to let you continue existing.

And when it comes right down to that, it really somehow feels even fucking worse than being disowned.

They had to at least relocate you because there was no way that the great Hollywood Gossip Reactor could ever cool down after your suicide attempt. They've set you up at the penthouse suite of a nice, inconspicuous condo tower close to the City and County line with a great view of the ocean. For all anybody in _Northern_ California knows, you're just another moneyed techie brat in a city almost as saturated with big money techie brats as the richer parts of LA that aren't saturated with actors and actresses.

Your ride pulls up after about 10 minutes of waiting around and watching the other arriving passengers get in taxis and Ubers. This time your ride is an exceedingly inconspicuous high-end Audi with a uniformed milquetoast rustblood driver who isn't even cracking you a sneer. You'll take the lack of reaction as a positive over side-sneers and backhanded chuckles.

In a way though, it's kinda appropriate that you had to be relocated here instead of Monaco or the company's headquarters in Trieste. After the Angel Island Incident and the chaos that followed left it in almost as much ruin as the 1906 earthquake, the City and County of San Francisco rebuilt itself quite nicely thanks to all that tech money from Silicon Valley. The city grew back into a nice, secure bubble of sophistication and touristy affluence, a little ivvory towwer for you to nestle in until it's time to head back to Europe or Long Beach to take the reins and finally consign your escapades to the "it's a phase" part of life.

You're going to be nestling in for quite a while though. They're not even going to set you up at Cal Berkeley's famous science labs until the student body moves on to the next great viral superhero escapade. In the meantime though, you've got your pick of art schools within the City and County limits to give you something to do, and perhaps you can also delve into the city's fine vintage fashions. You could even resume superhero spotting and even ironically embrace your "ex-failed supervvillain" label for some shred of credence among those looking into the world of superheroes from the outside.

You are Eridan Ampora and here is a chance to rebuild. Perhaps here things will be different.

"Hey mom, look, it's that weepwiggler from the news!" some jadeblood post-pupated wastechute suddenly shouts as you help the driver load your currently meager belongings into the trunk.

You cringe and look away. You're trembling and sniveling into your scarf by the time the car hits I-280.

Okay, maybe it won't be so different.

**== > Eridan: Actually face your fate.**

* * *

**Fort Funston**  
**Present Day**  
**2:32 am**

You are now Dauphine and although you don't outwardly look it you are trembling and whimpering into your bandana as, after encounters with three different gangs, your superhero escapades are looking to end not much differently than your supervillain ones.

An SCU patrol car has cut off your only avenue of escape with the Harley-Davidson you stole from a pair of angry bikers. Your thermally-engineered bodysuit completely fails at trying to keep you warm as you now realize that _this_ , ingloriously, is where things will finally come crashing down for good.

"It's over, Dauphine," comes an even more painfully familiar voice with a more British accent than yours as you recognize the source's corkscrew horn shape, platinum-white hair, and rosy(?) green cheeks rising from behind the driver's side door. As well as a green tuxedo, red scarf instead of a bowtie, and a very threatening-looking AM Duke Mk. 10 revolver that is pointed right at you, held professionally with both hands. "Now step away from the motorcycle and get down on your knees."

You comply, keeping your hands up as Detective Callie Ohpeee steps around the back of the vehicle, not cracking a smile as she keeps the revolver trained on your solar plexus. At this closing distance, the revolver could actually be considered something more of a hand cannon.

You're an officially-designated supercriminal with the country's most infamous official anti-superperson unit. There is absolutely nothing concrete in city law that can stop a member of this grotesquely distilled essence of a law enforcement agency from "neutralizing" you with what is probably a standard-issue high-powered weapon, calling it part of the course of arrest, _and_ being able to sell it to a public still trembling in past superhero-related trauma without causing more than a social media stir than your original and previously described foray into supervillainry.

You comply, switching off the bike's engine, dropping the kickstand and dismounting the Harley-Davidson. Your legs are already dangerously close to buckling under your heels as you kneel down.

She lowers her aim a little so she can withdraw some plastic handcuffs from her tuxedo's inner pocket. You don't struggle as she pulls the plasties taut around your wrist. She doesn't pull the wand out of its holster, but then again, she wouldn't know it's a weapon. Nor will you be able to reach it with your mouth, let alone arm and fire it.

"Don't worry, Dauphine, if you cooperate this will all end painlessly," she says in a very procedural manner as she grabs you by the shoulders to help you up. Your legs, wobbly on their heels, help you stand up out of reflex. "You're under arrest for illegal supercriminal activities in violation of the Angel Island Act. Anything you say can and will be used against you..."

You nod but it feels more like heavy shivering as she finishes reading you the mandatory Miranda. You know your rights, what little left there are. You're not going to object over them as she leads you to the rear passenger side door and opens it. You gently press your head against the door frame to guide yourself into the seat. Once the door closes, you lean forward, pressing the top of your head and horn guards against the barrier between the front and back seats, and start sniveling.

Really, what else were you going to do? Your only solace now is that you've dwelled on the consequences for so long that it barely causes you pain to think about them. Callie gets back into the driver's seat and eases the car away from the parking lot and back onto the mostly-empty streets.

The car barely gets 500 feet down Skyline Boulevard when you're already incapacitated by your own despair. But it only manages to get onto the Great Highway heading north when a new transmission occurs.

"SCU Centcom to 6-Alpha-6 pick up. Status report," comes the voice of a dispatcher over her dashboard receiver.

"6-Alpha-6 to Dispatch, I found the motorcycle abandoned in Fort Funston parking lot."

"Can you confirm Dauphine or Felt Primary?"

"Negative, no sign of either."

Your head perks up in surprise, your tearful eyes staring at the back of Callie's head as she talks into her receiver.

"Copy that 6-Alpha-6. Alert level decreased to blue. Wrecker is inbound to Fort Funston ETA 10 minutes."

"I'm continuing the search. 6-Alpha-6 out."

"W-what's going on?" you suddenly groan, squirming a little in your seat.

"You'll see," she replies, her calmness betraying bad omens as she flicks a glance to you through the rear-view mirror.

* * *

**Cantown Memorial**  
**Golden Gate Park**  
**15 minutes later**

The first sign that you know you're not headed to the SCU's headquarters across the Golden Gate Bridge in Tiburon is when the cruiser you're in drives past the intersection of Highway 1in Golden Gate Park. In fact, the cruiser continues down the park's winding inroads until you get to its most prominent water feature: Stow Lake. There's a small boating club by the lake allowing leisure boaters to row around Strawberry Hill, but she continues past it until bringing the car to a stop by a set of foliage by an empty field jutting out into the lake.

"We're here," she says as she turns off the engine. "I'm going to take off the handcuffs, but I'm only going to release you if you do exactly as I say, all right?"

You nod conspicuously in compliance. You're not going to argue with someone that can punch a .45 caliber hole in your chest with special forces precision.

At least not yet.

She gets out and opens the door to let you out. You slowly step out onto the empty field, looking down at your pointed heels digging into the ground a little to help you gain traction. You turn around and you can feel one of her hands holding your wrists in place while she cuts off the plasties with some kind of small pocket blade.

You can hear the sound of a waterfall in the distance as you shake your wrists. The plastic wasn't enough to cause anything more than serious indentations and mild irritation thanks to your suit, but you still need to shake them off a little to get the blood flowing properly.

"Okay, I'm going to show you something," she says as she walks past you toward what appears to be a large clump of overgrowth.

"W-what are we doing here?" you ask.

She takes out a small flashlight from her belt holster and flashes it on the overgrowth and heaves some of it away to reveal a four-foot-tall simple granite slab.

"Dauphine, you need to know what you will be getting into if you keep up what you're doing," she replies.

The slab is a simple memorial to a place that only existed for a few short weeks, the only physical remnant of its existence. But you're surprised it still exists.

"Years ago, this city was brought to its knees by an act of Gog and the cruel acts of their creation," she begins. "We were only wrigglers then, but when Market Street sank and the Bay Bridge fell, we still felt their pain."

Technically, you weren't even a complete combination of genetic material when the Angel Island Incident occurred, but you've still retained enough of your "spotting" knowledge to know what happened. The city had barely recovered from Loma Prieta when a meteorite impact on Angel Island caused hundreds of thousands of people across the Bay Area to inexplicably turn green. Comical as it sounded in _fictional_ media, nobody knew _then_ that the symptoms wore off in hours.

While the emergency services got tied up, supervillains and their cadres followed by superheroes looking to stop them, and gangs emboldened by their expansion and subsequent eviction during the Los Angeles Riots came to carve out what the Bay Area's police departments couldn't keep from burning down.

"Thousands of people gathered here, every species and walk of life," she continues, pointing the light across Stow Lake to the shores of Strawberry Hill, the island rising out of the middle of the lake. "And four guardians held firm against the chaos that reigned. They built a beacon of hope amidst the hopelessness."

Cantown was the name of a refugee zone built and run by four lesser-known superheroes in the midst of the crisis. The league they formed went by many Cantown-derived nicknames, but they kept the refugee zone formed in and around Strawberry Hill from being devoured by the chaos that engulfed the city around them, taking in the needy and taking out predators with extreme prejudice.

Callie points her flashlight out at the island, painstakingly renovated to look exactly as it did _before_ Cantown was built.

"The city was grateful to them, but then we remembered how afraid we were. Now we barely remember who they were," she starts to sound almost guilty when describing what happened, "Because unlike the rest, they were the only ones not consumed with unfathomable bloodlust. We were afraid, and we had reason."

You know it was that fear that led to the institution of America's first explicitly anti-superhero city ordinance: the Angel Island Act. Then-Mayor Mondeci was an otherwise unassuming young councilman that knew exactly what to say to get him into office, to get that Act drafted, passed and signed, and how to ensure it survived State and Federal backlash. Decades later, the city is (mostly) cleansed of superheroes and supervillains but the expiration clause of the Act has never accumulated enough momentum even as he became governor, let alone momentum to revise wording that echoed Mayor Yewgin Shmitz's infamous kill order after the earthquake of 1906.

"But _we're_ safe now. The city's safe," and Callie says it like she means it, "Uroboros is our first significant supercriminal threat since Cacoethes and the Debonair Corsair."

She finally points to the text on the memorial, plain engraved Times font that reads "Dedicated to Those who Saved, 199" with the last year number tagged with a simple graffito in a dark-colored paint that seems to absorb the flashlight. The only tangible acknowledgement from the city or its citizens, other than whoever managed to approve the paperwork to erect it out of utter appeasement to the crowds.

Nunchakind ace Cacoethes and the steampunk Debonair Corsair were a pair of superheroes that managed to make it past the wannabe rung of the echeladder, tangling with the city's established criminal powerhouses on an almost nightly basis and working their way toward the Bay Area's biggest crime bust in decades.

They died while you were still in high school, before your chance meeting with Seattle's non-uniformed finest, before your fall and rise and fall again. It is said the two wanted to go out like Bonnie and Clyde, and they did in an explosion that took out a thankfully-abandoned two-story building at the edge of the last Reclamation Area. The official story says the SCU stopped them before they could drive the Midnight Crew and the largest Northern California chapter of the Families against each other.

"As for the guardians, one of them fled...but her life caught up with her," she concludes, on the precipice of tears, meaning it as much as she doesn't. "I work for the other three."

Phantom Maiden fled to Atlanta and met an inglorious end in a robbery much like the one you barely escaped, although that city gave her _de facto_ state honors. Wayward Vagabond might have been forced to unmask and register like the other three, but he leveraged his popularity among those that hadn't been forced out by gentrification to became Mayor.

You never checked what happened to the Aimless Renegade and the Windswept Questant, but you can scientifically deduce an educated guess. Of course they had to live long enough to become villains, pitted against the new Mayor and his ideology.

"W-why are you telling me all this?" you ask, gesturing outward and fully expecting this moment to be when she turns around and pulls her gun on you at the very least.

"Because I'm only going to tell you once," she says as stern as she sounds regretful, lowering the flashlight and looking up at the starry sky. "Stop your supercriminal activities now before you have too many irons in the fire. The city's tense enough without people doing crazy superpowered things."

So that's it. That's the choice.

It doesn't take you much to realize that it is almost the exact same choice that Uroboros gave you at Alcatraz.

To anyone else with your kind of background and recent experience, the choice sounds so simple. So sensible. Stop going down a path that led you to utter humiliation and is probably going to lead you to destruction if you keep going. Go back to being that photography student that enjoys superhero spotting as a way to pass the time before you head back to Europe to prepare for your actual return to Long Beach.

Now it even makes sense why she walked around the back of the vehicle. Unless she had a body camera on her, there's nothing officially saying she even booked you.

"I...I..." But now, it's not so easy.

When you decided that you were going to make criminals fear you as a superhero version of how Erigami began, you ended up facing them as an almost copy of how Erigami ended. The operative word is 'almost,' of course. You intended to leverage your fear into instilling fear. You ended up kinda-sorta channeling your own fear into repeated asskicking and crime thwarting. And you ended up getting caught by the SCU, technically twice and almost three times. You haven't found time to thank the horrorterrors for making sure it was Callie that caught you and not those two flunkies that almost cornered you in that alley.

If this was the 'hope' power Uroboros mentioned, then it did more to keep you from dying then it did to help you actually live.

On the other hand, it had also occurred to you that there existed a small voice in your head that suggested that maybe, just maybe, the frumpy business-troll and photography student outside looking in wasn't who you were supposed to be.

"No...I can't." It is that voice that is causing you to speak now.

"What?!" She's surprised to hear your reply and not in a good way as she holsters her flashlight.

Maybe because even though you know all your childhood fiction fantasies were strictly fiction, all the science in the world could never dull your sense of wonder.

"Refusal to give up your supercriminal activities isn't just your standard misdemeanor, Dauphine," she adds, turning to face you with more than a frustrated frown across her face. "But I'm only offering you this chance now. If you comply and register, you might not even see any time in the penitentiary."

That voice continues to speak, and you can't stop it, backing away slowly. "I can't. I'm not gonna go back!"

"Back to what?" Whatever concern she has for you as she wonders what exactly you don't want to go back to is erased when you put your left hand up to your wand holster. "Dauphine, are you concealing a weapon!?"

You know she'll go for her pistol to try to draw on you, that's standard police procedure. You have every opportunity to put your hand down, then up, to try to disarm the situation. But what started as a voice has snowballed into a controlling force powerful enough to dictate your actions. She hasn't walked more than 5 feet in front of you to show you the memorial, so she's able to get the pistol out but not aim it before you both end up slammed against the memorial's bulk.

"Dauphine! This is resisting arrest-"

You are briefly entangled as you divert the pistol under your arms and away from your body. But she's able to wield her own leverage to bring both of you to the dirt with her straddle-kneeling above you. She props herself enough to allow her to press the Duke Mk. 10 square against your forehead. You're dazed, but you managed to hold onto your wand as you drew it from your holster, and now the two of you are at the lying down equivalent of a standoff. However the word _standoff_ implies that the two of you have equal capacity to violently end each other's lives on very short notice, and you can only hope that your wand will provide enough power to keep her from making a very easy killshot.

If Callie actually does kill you right now, you can go into whatever troll afterlife there is (or barring that, have your consciousness vanish into oblivion) knowing that in that one moment of your life you stood up for the power you use. If not for others, then at least for yourself.

You were content to be resigned to a fate written for you at spawning. You tried to defy it and ended up so perilously close to something much worse that up until Uroboros' visitation you were absolutely, scientifically certain that there was no reward worth risking writing your own damn story.

But you always had that seed of doubt. That mote of skepticism that fuels the eternal quest for knowledge amidst the fanatic dogma, like a mote of light against the darkness.

And now you are here, about to reap the fruits of its labor. You and your aggressor are holding each other at deathpoint for the lack of a better word to combine gunpoint and its still-uncoined wand equivalent. If you do somehow escape, well, you can't exactly think about a potential life as a fugitive when you're too busy focusing on not dying.

"One last time!" she seethes through her fangs, "For all our sakes, Dauphine! You will end your supercriminal activity or I'll end it for you!"

You can hear it charging up as you force your arm up to aim it into her body.

You can see steam wisping off your left arm as you flick the safety off the wand. You clench your teeth and grimace. If the only part of your story you will write will be the last period at the end of the last sentence on its final page, you are going to burn a hole straight through the gogdamn book.

"No!" you scream as you click the fire button with your thumb. "I'm w-writin' my own thesis!"

You expect Callie to go out with a bang as you unleash your battlecry. Instead the wand flickers and buzzes red indicating a lack of power.

Welp.

**== > Life: Flash before Dauphine's eyes.**

* * *

**Trieste, Italy  
Years ago, and this time very many...**

You have just completed your first sweep of post-pupated existence and everything is magical and wonderful.

As a sweep-day present, you've been allowed on a guided tour through one of Atlantis' research labs in Skyhorsedad's tow. You're in your lavender primary school uniform, looking every bit the bright-eyed bookwriggler whose opposite you'd become. The one developing materials to make things stronger and faster. Researchers and material engineers whirl from machines to computers to samples, tinkering with substances that have yet to become industrial secrets and managing gigabytes of data - this _was_ before gigabytes were available to the general public, of course - all to ensure that the right mixture doesn't collapse or disintegrate after reaching a precise temperature limit.

To you, it's all magic. And because someone planted the idea in your thinkpan that this was all yours or would be when you grow up, you've brought the right toy for the occasion.

It's a simple, plastic thing with a plain black handle and a sunflower-yellow star at the end. It doesn't even light up. But you loved this little toy wand like a wwizard's familiar when you saw it at a toy store and you wouldn't stop begging your lusus to give it to you until he acquiesced. You're tapping anything and everything, squeaking out "aba-cadabra" and other stunted recitations of popular spell names just to see if you've got actual magical powers. Much to Skyhorsedad's annoyance, as well as your childhood naivete, the researchers are "in on it" to see a small child happy with their work, although they do make a point to move the more fragile items away from your child-like lack of hand-eye coordination.

Eventually however, the thousand-lira toy eventually shows that you get what your lusus paid for.

The star slides off and clatters to the ground after repeated taps on a server bank. It doesn't shatter, but inside you feel like it did. You cling to what's left of the wand, quivering as spinel tears well up in your eyes and Skyhorsedad moves on through the lab to see who else he can scold.

Your crying attracts the attention of someone else, thankfully enough. You don't remember their face. But you know that while Skyhorsedad was still making his own way to the next lab over, they came up and somehow found a way to make it better.

They pick up the star, and apply some superglue to it before reattaching it to the wand. You're not sure why a researcher would carry it around their workstation, but when they apply it, they describe it like they're using some kind of potion.

Your face brightens and you give the elder wizard/warlock/witch a big hug and a squeal of delight.

You never see them again. You never even learn their name. All you know was that they "broke the rules."

You'd learn that you can't just simply wish a problem away. You'd learn the real scientific processes behind what they were doing, and that it wasn't really magic at all. You'd briefly idolize a comic book pirate whose horn shape was suspiciously similar to yours, and you'd try to re-enact his adventures with Skyhorsedad as your ship/steed, and when that memory faded from your mind you resigned heroes to fiction and forum.

**== > Memory: Inspire miracle.**

* * *

**Present Day  
**

You are not entirely sure what a singular mostly-forgotten memory of your childhood involving fake magic and a bunch of scientists has to do with the fact that now, only now, has all your hope and its related power failed to deliver.

The spirals on Callie's cheeks seem to glow as she grins almost ferally. She sees your wand blinking helplessly, _hopelessly_ out of power from the corner of her angry neon-green eyes and you know it will only be seconds until your face is the recipient of a long-overdue high caliber makeover. She sees your eyes widening because she knows that you know that it will only be seconds until she administers that makeover.

Any other given day, and in fact, literally only a few minutes ago you would have crumpled and buckled in tears of depression. But at least then you had the option to get out, or at the very worst things turned out somewhat for the better over the long run.

"Directly assaulting a member of the SuperCrime Unit is grounds for immediate neutralization," she says with an almost robotically rigid tone, still pronouncing her long U's. "But I think you knew that already."

Now, the possibility of a "long run" has dropped off to nil because you practically wanted this to happen. And for once, you're fine with that.

Death is smiling at you, and you do the only thing you can do now: smile back. If you're going to truly die, you're going to go out like you should.

Laughing.

"You're ready for this, aren't you," she mutters between clenched fangs.

"Ready as I'll ever fuckin' be," you reply, letting your arm go limp and dropping your now-useless wand on the ground. "Come on."

She presses the revolver between your eyes and you don't even blink as you match her neon gaze for your violet ones as she pulls the hammer back with a gloved hand. You feel a circular indentation to guide the bullet forming on your forehead and you close your eyes as you feel the pressure build up, expecting the inevitable.

Then she suddenly gets up with a deep exhale, using the gun pressed against your forehead to help her up. You open her eyes to see her holstering her revolver within her tailcoat.

"Yeah. You're finally ready," there is satisfaction in her frustration, as she starts walking slowly away.

You continue to lay on the gravel for several minutes, your eyes wide open and blinking only when they get irritated from staying wide open for so long. Your vision focuses on the stars above not clouded out by the city's light pollution below as you hear her get back into the cruiser and drive away. The fact that you are already literally floored does the job of the surprise that she literally just let you go.

But there's another revelation in that revelation. A double revelation reacharound.

The first revelation is that Callie was really one of Uroboros' infiltrators into the SCU. Thus it followed that her saying your ready means you're ready to take on the Midnight Crew, School of Mermen and the city's other threats. As well as an organization that has successfully convinced people that they are its protectors, which could make it an even bigger threat. In short, you're ready to _properly_ face death. Or at least now you'll know when you're ready.

The second revelation is that for a moment, you realized you were making your own damn choices in life for your own damn self. You could have walked away from the pier, stood up Uroboros at Alcatraz, kept riding the bus past the convenience store. But in those moments, it was truly no longer about pleasing or appeasing Skyhorsedad, or pleasing or appeasing the company responsible for your existence, or trying to get Fef back. You held on because you wanted a way out of what you were. If you're going to really fight crime and be fabulous about it, you'll have to find a way to maintain that mentality.

It'll take a lot of work to keep up that will, to face these kind of life-and-death situations much more often than you did cooped up in a condominium. Superhero and alter ego personalities notwithstanding, you're not some kind of gogdamn switchboard.

You didn't decide to willfully ignore gendered clothing norms the night you and the Lalonde sisters had your little shopping spree. Nor, conversely, did the city (and county) of San Francisco rebuild itself into a sterile, paranoid citadel virtually devoid of its quirkiness overnight. You'll be facing more threats like the two officers that nearly cornered you in that alley as often as you're going to face the criminal elements trying to fight them. You might even face Callie again, and this time she won't give you some spiel before splattering your near-royal viscera across the nearest surface.

Whatever you're going to try to turn yourself into, whoever this brand new you is going to be, you're going to make it yours. You're probably going to relapse along the way, and you're going to have to deal with those consequences. Some of those consequences won't be pretty, and nobody will bail you out of them, but that's life as you now know it.

And maybe, that's not such a bad thing to happen in the long run.

Speaking of consequences, however, you are still currently lying on the gravel in the middle of Golden Gate Park, it's still cold out and you need to find a way back home again because you've got class in the afternoon.

And Uroboros probably wants you to make your own way home.

Double welp. Maybe you can get to the nearest bus stop when they start running for the morning.

**== > FILE END**

* * *

**Bay Area Special Enforcement District**  
General Operations Database (BASED-GOD)  
SuperCrime Unit - Monitoring Division (SCU-M)  
  
Login: ohpeeec  
Pass: *********

==> **RETRIEVE DAUPHINE/UPD8FILE -24h**

20h ago - 911 call to robbery with shots fired at 1XXX 45th Avenue. Investigation by SFPD verifies supercriminal matching Dauphine's description recorded by cameras counterattacking suspected robbery attempt by members of the School of Merman outlaw biker gang. Bystander matching description of Felt Primary member [REDACTED] alias Doze seen escaping with Dauphine from scene of crime. Energy weapon confirmed used, origin unknown. One suspect suffers third-degree burns across right arm and is hospitalized. Whereabouts of second suspect unknown.

18h ago - Perimeter declared lifted from Outer Sunset-Lake Merced area after getaway vehicle located abandoned near Fort Funston. Whereabouts of Doze and Dauphine are unknown.

**== > RETRIEVE DAUPHINE/SCUTTLE**

_NEW SCUTTLE EFFECTIVE 1511HR / APPROVAL BY SCU-D CMD REMINGTA_  
**SuperCrime Unit Threat-Target Level:** _**Low-Medium**_

**Recommendation:** In the wake of the first Local Emergence supercriminal on the Active/Present list since Uroboros, it is the recommendation of the Office of the Governor that the SCU create dedicated individual teams within SCU-M to investigate Uroboros and Dauphine. Investigation of Dauphine should explore possible link between Dauphine and Felt Primary, as well as possible source of energy weaponry. No increase in SCU-D patrol presence within the BASED is ordered at this time.

It is advised that all non-SCU law enforcement personnel in the BASED treat Dauphine as "armed and dangerous" and no attempt should be made to apprehend or neutralize Dauphine without express authorization from SCU unless in justifiable self-defense. Deployment units are ordered to treat Dauphine as "armed and dangerous" and are not to explicitly neutralize Dauphine except upon order from Command or in self-defense.

==> **EXIT**

**[ARC 1 END]**


	11. ==> FILE 11

**== > RETRIEVE FILE 11**

**[REDIRECT PROLOGUE_END]**

**== > Dauphine: Let's go superheroing!**

**Parkmerced**  
**9:05 pm**

_"...the crime spree has not only drawn the attention of local law enforcement, but also rival supercriminals as well. The SCU has released security camera footage showing apparent intervention by local supercriminals Uroboros and Dauphine."_

You cannot be Dauphine because you are currently Eridan Ampora's lusus and the evening news is on as you float-pace in a vaguely rounded-rectangular path around the living room of your sleek, efficient Parkmerced penthouse waiting for your charge to call. He was supposed to have been home at least an hour ago from his photography classes and dinner is already cold. You furrow your white, scaly brows as you wonder how he managed to squander the goodwill he built setting up a little lair of his own so gogdamn quickly.

_"This recently-released security footage shows one suspect apparently pulling off a part of Uroboros' outfit before she incapacitates him. The other suspects were found unconscious and restrained at the scene and are currently in custody."_

You pull a flawless levitating 180 and hover right over as the phone on the dining room counter suddenly rings. As you do not have any actual hands, you poke at the speaker phone button with your muzzle in a precise (and dry) motion that you've practiced over the sweeps. The voice on the other side of the phone barely gets out the first syllable before you give a stern, fatherly whinny.

Eridan then tells you in his usual frustrated simpering tone that he's at Fisherman's Wharf doing homework. That he's in a _reasonably_ safe part of this town makes little difference to you, what with the recent sudden string of robberies, mass shoplifting and break-ins affiliated to some biker gang. He's been out doing "homework" a lot more often and for longer than he should. In fact, it's probably not a stretch that he's really just been going around trying to snap photos of those two vigilantes running around town. And it's even more likely that he actually built that monitoring center _just_ so he can keep up with their whereabouts instead of, say, trying to commit economic sabotage in Central America.

Forget wasting goodwill that he never really had with you as the backup heir, he's wasting the kind of ruthless strategic prowess that can _build empires_. That's pretty much why you're keeping him alive right now. That and the board won't "commit further long-term resources to a permanent CEO search."

You make a mental note to check up on his little lair to confirm this before you then nicker at him to get home for dinner again. He tells you he'll be home in an hour, to which you whinny that you are expecting him not a minute after.

_"About half an hour later, a vigilante fitting the description of Dauphine was seen intervening in an attempted robbery at this convenience store in Inner Sunset. When a suspect tries to pull a gun on him, Dauphine retaliates with what appears to be a directed energy weapon of sorts, disarming the suspect. The other suspect fled and is still at large."_

You poke the button to hang up on the call and turn your attention back to the screen, which has just cut back to the newscasters in the studio. With _two_ supervigilantes running loose in the city against a biker gang, and Eridan attracted to them like a winged grublet, all you can do is deal with the shitty hand (fin?)  you got dealt.

But you know what? You've been dealing with it since Cronus left. Even a father(-figure equivalent) has a limit to his patience, human filial love be damned.

You're going to go to his lair and see if you can finagle a way to track _him._ That'll teach him what for.

_"The Special Enforcement District is asking anybody with information on the whereabouts of these supercriminals to contact them through the hotline displayed on your screen-"_

You let out a very equine huff as you poke the off button on the remote control laying on the coffee table, and head back to the kitchen to dismiss your chef for the night and put the food in its usual plastic containers. You've got half a mind to report him to the SuperCrime unit as an accomplice just to snap him out of his little spotting spree. If it weren't for your globetrotting (globehovering?) schedule, he'd still be out with you properly shooting proper wildlife.

As you float over to the far side of the dinner table and start pecking at your food, you very belatedly notice exactly how much of an actual gulf you have with your charge, sitting literally that far from him as you face each other. Why, it seems almost yesterday when you were letting him ride on the saddle on your back for riding and shooting lessons...

**== > Skyhorsedad: Reminisce.**

* * *

  **Hyde Street Pier  
9:05 pm**

You cannot reminisce about the past because you are now Eridan Ampora in the present and the sound of the waves and old wooden boat construction creaking against them relaxes you. Somewhat. You check your messages on your smartphone one last time after hanging up on Skyhorsedad's call, before you descend into the Hyde Street Pier's most famous attraction.

You were just getting out of your last class of the evening roughly an hour or so ago. You were and still are dressed in your attire for "putting up airs," the thick black sweater, baggy pants, purple shoes and your should-be-trademarked scarf along with your snug custom All-Stars. You were also trying and mostly succeeding in distracting your mind from the near-death experience you had in Golden Gate Park the other day when your smartphone went off in your pocket. You took it out and noticed that you received a picture message.

One that clearly shows Uroboros taking a dubiously-lit winking selfie captioned "baile chlUaidh, whenever yoU can make it! ^u^" in the exact erratic capitalization that you are pretty sure matches her speaking quirk. Without her mask.

After a cursory Google search and a short Uber ride, you found yourself at the Hyde Street Pier down the hill from the old renovated Ghirardelli chocolate factory. It's a weekday night, which means the pier is mostly deserted apart from the odd employee. Which is still better than it being completely depopulated like Pier 43.

The otherwise cryptic words you received turned out to be the original Gaelic rendering for the name of the ship you're certain Uroboros is sending you to. You climb the gangplank onto the main deck of the _Balclutha_ , stopping for a moment to try to get your sea legs and make sure nobody's following you.

You could also be walking into another trap set by any number of organizations you've run into since Uroboros flew in through your window, but you've yet to notice their representatives anywhere near the pier. No shady looking characters in sharp black suits, no green mineral-altered mutants, no bikers. And the only law enforcement organization vehicle you've spotted was an SFPD cruiser at a stoplight. You make your way to the stairs below, into the historical exhibits set up throughout the ship's mid-deck.

Many, many sweeps ago, the _Balclutha_ traversed the long journey to and from the Unions of old and new. Although she never shipped actual gold from the mines of California, she did bring another kind of gold back to England. Cargoes of wheat enriched the royal bakeries, and in return the  _Balclutha_ brought back cargoes of valuable industrial material...as well as leisurely drink for the people that made use of them. She eventually ended up in more domestic trades, ferrying cannery workers up to Alaska and bringing canned salmon back to the Lower 48 before the Depression finally pushed her into retirement.

Or so she thought. A film producer turned her into a set ship for a pirate movie, and exhibited her as such to crowds that didn't know better until the city bought her back and turned her into a museum ship, and she rested quietly moored to Pier 41 until those fateful nights before you were spawned.

The mid-deck of the ship has been "retrofitted" with replicas of the old crates, cargo and furnishings for tourists, complete with plaques and displays explaining each old feature in period-appropriate font and minus the dirt and vermin. There's even a small stage where its "crew" sings old shanties every weekend. But you climb over the chain blocking off the staircase leading to the Orlop deck, which hasn't been furnished at all apart from a few fluorescent lights along the rafters.

As you slowly make your way down step by creaky step, you're more preoccupied by the fact that you've actually never developed proper sea legs than the fact that the  _Balclutha_ ended up beached in Brookings, Oregon with about 50 scared tourists (and a couple of cannibalized lusii) huddled down in the Orlop deck after a fight between a supervillain and superhero tore her free from her moorings. Much like the overgrown memorial in Golden Gate Park, the restoration groups left no evidence that such an incident occurred on this old vessel. None of the aforementioned history really would pique your interest more than naval strategy and warfare.

You keep your left hand firmly clutching the old brass pipe that sticks out from the staircase as you reach the bottom, hoping that the seas stay reasonably calm.

"Dauphine! Here!" comes a whisper on the upper limits of whispering.

This time, Uroboros is waiting for you in the aft corner of the Orlop deck, waving you over. On time, no surprises, no sudden bouts of henchmen.

Well, maybe there is one surprise.

She is apparently naked as she rests against the inner hull, one of her left sets of wings wrapping over her lower midsection. The curvature of the lower hull makes it appear as if she's sitting up a little bit as she sketches on an A3-size pad, occasionally switching out pencils from a small box to her left.

"You made it!" she says as you approach, her eyes lighting up with that same enthusiasm as when you met. It seems to distract from the fact that she doesn't have a nose, instead having a cavity similar to that on a skull. Her teeth are also a brighter, more faded shade of green. They're also clearly carnivorous compared to even a troll's dental features.

"I...I got your message," you stammer as you walk slowly toward her. You know what she's capable of, you don't want to make any move that can easily warrant swift physical incapacitation.

You carefully sit down cross-legged on the floor beside her next to the inner hull, facing her sketchbook. Her wings move almost instinctively to avoid you, but you exercise caution all the same.

Now that you are this close to her, you are able to discern many of this particular superhero's...details. To find a word. Like the way her skin (hide?) has a subtly scaly texture similar to that of an alligator or other vicious reptile, more visible up close with the light shaping out every scale. You postulate (scientifically!) that this could the result of whatever horrific superhero origin accident caused her to look like this? Possibly the result of the Angel Island Incident mutating her like that _severely_ ornery NFL player that disappeared years ago?

Speaking of previously-originated species, she has non-functional rumble spheres akin to a troll's instead of a human's. Maybe she was a troll before her superhero origin accident. Her left wings are curled around her hips specifically to conceal that mystery, but any further ponderance is directed even lower down her body.

You never noticed them beyond the claws, but her feet are very clearly digitigrade like the reptiles of pre-antiquity, ending in three claws each. Or at least the reptiles of pre-antiquity before scientists began postulating that they had feathers. Although having a dark-green feathery hide would certainly keep Uroboros warm in Bay Area weather. Which leads you to the first words out of your mouth.

"...aren't you cold down here?" you almost burst out.

Uroboros chuckles darkly, having inevitably expected a comment like that although also expecting something a little more personal.

"Not to an extreme," she explains as she briefly glances at you, her voice calm and almost musical as she continues, "although my previous outfit did not necessarily offer too much protection from the weather patterns of the San Francisco Bay Area."

"Not much protection from bullets either, I imagine," you add as you observe her sketching. Although the A3-size sketchbook is proportioned to her hands as a standard-size notebook is to yours, she is able to wield the pencils between clawed, muscular fingers with the finesse of a veteran painter.

"Actually, my body can deflect or destroy most low-caliber projectiles and minimize the damage caused by most blades and specibi," she continues, before putting down the black pencil by her side and picking up a red one. "If my stature doesn't intimidate others into backing down before firing. But you are correct, the same doesn't apply to my outfits. And every impact does sting."

"D'you make them yourself?" you ask, focusing on the designs she's made to ease out your own sense of being intimidated.

"Of course!" she giggles, "The one benefit of my previous outfit's destruction is that now I can now devote some time into constructing a new one!"

Her devotion of said time appears to have been very well spent. The sketchpad is a fluid arrangement of different concepts for outfits and apparel in various stages of coloring, organized better than the collections of many of your Academy of Art colleagues in fashion design. And the base model she uses actually has her body shape instead of that of a size-000 supermodel.

You appear to have arrived at a later stage of refinement because there is now a common theme among the sketches. She now chooses to cover her torso and upper legs in items ranging from a tunic to a dress with a sash tied across the waist. A black hood is a recurring part of the outfit, along with a low-slung back allowing her to move her wings. She's obviously recognized that her unique lower leg configuration precludes her from footwear, and chooses to wrap her arches in anything from simple tape to warmers and even anime-style belts that may or may not be available in adult entertainment stores.

There is one variation that does catch your eye, and not for a good reason.

"...you probably don't w-want to use the one with a cape." You mention this out of experience, of course. "Try stickin' w-with foot w-wraps that w-won't pinch w-when you're turnin' in combat a lot? An' I like the arm sleevves separate if you can find a w-way to keep them secure."

"That's a good observation, actually. Thank you!" her reply grateful before she carefully crosses out the cape region on one of the sketches.

It takes about a few more minutes of alternating between watching her drawings and wondering how she walks with those kind of legs before you finally, properly break the ice.

"All right. I knoww you didn't invvite me dowwn here to talk about neww outfits."

"It was going to be part of the discussion, yes," she replies, finishing the linework on a view of a capeless version of the outfit from behind before facing you. "But we are both here because fate has preappointed this time for us to face the threats to this city together, and we'll need to formulate a strategy."

"W-which threat?" you mutter, pulling your legs close. "Cops, supercops, bikers, Creww, little green men...fuckin' evverywwhere. Evven your _friends_."

Of all the harrowing encounters you've had since you decided that maybe you'd like to sprinkle some fabulous into the world of capeless crusading, the one that you still most vividly remember was the most recent. That is to say, Detective Callie literally only a half-inch trigger pull away from exploding your head open like a big violet gourd. You can still faintly feel the nozzle of the Duke revolver between your eyes just thinking about it.

"I am not going to pull punches with my words, Dauphine," she now sounds almost motherly and in a very Skyhorsedad way, "Fighting for the cause of justice is always a matter of survive or perish, no matter how many allies we have or what methods they may use."

"I mean...howw did _you_ do it?" you ask. "You w-with your _amazin' mutant physique_ an' police infiltrator friends an' all."

"It certainly helps that I have a less conspicuous alternate body as my alter ego," she giggles cheerily, not skipping a beat. "But cultivating a network of trustworthy associates is also a sound strategy."

"I meant w-what's _your_ secret to survvivvin' this long out 'ere?" you press on, raising your arms out.

It's then that she retracts her legs, puts her sketchpad down and turns to face you, kneeling. She leans forward a little, a gentle smile on her noseless face as she looms over you in a strangely non-threatening way.

"We've learned enough to know that there's no real secrets to survival," she says, "Other than the ones we keep to each other."

"But you knoww my identity..." you plead, trying to keep your voice down, "If we keep secrets to _each other_ then that means- no."

Your hands immediately cover your mouth in shock as the pieces finally fall into place.

Uroboros knows who you are outside of your identity. That was established the moment she broke into your apartment. Now she's inferring that you know who she is, like you've encountered her more than once and not in that form. You could list any number of fashion design students if you knew their names, based on the sketches alone. She might even be the Felt's head honcho (honch _a?_ ) trying to recruit you into her gang. But then there's the only recurring personality you've met since that first encounter.

Callie couldn't have  _just happened_ to pull up to the dock, moor the boat and make her way up to the lighthouse in the time it took for you to climb down the stairs. She couldn't have tracked you all the way down to Fort Funston that quickly from the robbery. Even the SCU would need to tap the store's security feed directly to know what was going on. She couldn't have just planned to go off the radar to bring you to Golden Gate Park, threaten you, and _not_ bring down the rest of the SuperCrime Unit once she determined you had the shameglobes to take them on.

Unless she was... _already there_.

"Oh Gog. I'm sorry," now you're quivering again. "The Felt...that was coincidence!"

"Don't worry, you haven't led them here!" she replies, gesturing in a 'quell your rumblespheres' motion. Of course she'd know too. She literally would not be here if you were followed by even a museum guide.

"Just...w-why did you let me figure this out?" you say, recoiling slowly away from her.

"Because I had to figure _you_ out in order to prepare you," she adds, still trying to sound shooshpappy. "I know it was a risk-"

"So w-why _me_!?" You're going all the way back to that question again.

And that's when she leans forward and...hugs you. For about the first two seconds you're expecting to be suffocated, but for a presumably cold-blooded reptilian mutant her hug is surprisingly warm. Like, not just your scarf and thick clothing warm, like it's genuinely warming you inside.

"Because of all the people I've known, I believe you're someone I can trust," she says softly, with the kind of sincerity that you swear you've never heard from the chairs of the Hollywood therapists that Skyhorsedad foisted you off onto whenever you had problems to deal with and you couldn't take your Crosshairs to their torsos with. "I knew it looked hypocritical, trying to earn your trust by finding out who you were...so I figured that letting you deduce mine would even things out."

"W-when you kneww I was a spotter, w-when I'd leap at the chance to tell the w-whole w-world..." you're almost sobbing at this point.

"I know," she says, sounding like she hopes she won't regret it. "But I believe I can trust you because there is one thing all the data in the world cannot tell me..."

"An' that's..."

"That we're both looking for someone to trust."

"Your connections in the SCU don't count?" you ask in disbelief.

"I meant a friend," she adds softly, "We can both agree we need one."

Your body almost goes limp dumbfounded.

If this is how you start actually making friends in this town, the last surprise is that you haven't made more enemies.

**== > Eridan: Make more enemies.**

* * *

**Somewhere in Oakland**  
**1:54am  
**

You cannot make any enemies right now because you are currently a member of the School of Merman and you have to process a pile of hard cash before the morning.

As part of the first stakes pulled up outside of Nevada, the part of the operation dedicated to preparing cash for laundering and other purposes is entirely contained within an old boarded-up two story building stuck in bureaucratic limbo between gentrification and demolition. More specifically it is contained within a roughly 500 square foot empty office area with laminate wallpaper that's only starting to peel, lit only by a couple of desk lamps to avoid attention.

Your "standard-issue" leather vest is draped on the folding steel chair behind you, and you're sweating in your plain white tee and branded denim.

Here, it's just you, a guard, and a pile of cash derived from fencing the gang's recently-stolen goods down the East Bay and out to West Sacramento. As well as your boss, who has stopped by to check how the counting is going. His face is still masked by his bandana, but you can get a hint of his expression from his upper cheeks and eye shape.

Even at rates intended to undercut the local gang presence, you've still made quite the killing for an almost-zero initial investment. The accumulated haul of the last 48 hours of fencing the stolen goods barely covers half the folding table. You and the counting machine stand at the middle of the table, unsorted bills on your right and the sorted bills on the left, subdivided into two piles for ones to tens and the other for twenties up. The unsorted bills pile is almost completely spent, owing to your having finished sorting for the night. A cheap pocket calculator and a 3-by-5 notepad with quickly-scribbled totals keeps track of the stash.

"How goes the number-crunching, bud?" he asks, walking up to your left and putting a hand on your right shoulder all buddy-like. Despite the presence of a chair behind you, you do your most persistent work standing up.

"It's great. Just peachy. We've got just about enough money to get those Bay Street hoods drooling," you reply with what little confidence you can muster.

 _"Almost_ ain't a word I'd like to hear tonight," he says with an encouraging disappointment, taking the cigarette from his mouth and leaning in close to your ear.

You try to keep focusing on the machine, its faded green LED screen digitally counting up to each stack of 50. This kind of focus allows you to come up with the answer you want him to hear.

"Well, as soon as those guys get back from Sactown, I'm expecting there'll be enough to buy us all some drinks too after we're done," you continue, feeding the last stack of 20s into the machine.

"Good boy," he replies, giving you a slight masseuse pinch and then a pat to your right shoulder before turning around. "And you'll get your cut too."

He doesn't have to add 'in case you were thinking otherwise,' and not just because he's got a guard in the room ostensibly watching you at all times from his own folding steel chair.

"Just one question, boss," you posit before he reaches the door, adjusting your glasses.

"Shoot, I'm all ear-fins," he says, turning to face you with a salesman's smile.

"What's the point of accumulatin' all this money when you told me we ain't exactly gonna be using it?" you ask. "Not that I'm questionin' your motives or anything..."

"We'll be usin' it. Just not in the way they expect it to," he explains, hands in his pockets all casual like. "That's all the questions I'm gonna get about it though, capiche?"

"Yeah, sure boss," you reply timidly, before feeding in a stack of 10s. You work slowly, hoping he'll close the door behind him.

"Oh, and, one more thing," the Merman says, hands in his tight-fitting Levi's-branded jeans pockets. You freeze, hoping that you won't die clutching a stack of small bills.

"Y...yes?" you try not to give him a look back. But you do and your hand clenches around a stack of small bills like you're clinging on for dear life.

"We do have enough money for Bay Street. I got a feeling that we won't have'ta worry about legal fees."

He gives off a bit of a chuckle as he closes the door behind him. When you realize what he means, you start wishing you'd taken your own cut and ran while you could.

==> **Finish counting and try not to think about the implications.**

* * *

 **CA Balclutha**  
**Hyde Street Pier**  
**9:20pm**

You are now Eridan Ampora again and there are absolutely no implications behind the fact that you've just been given a big green hug by a big green superhero.

"So...um...noww that w-we'vve established our mighty bond'a friendship," you say as soon as she lets you go, allowing you to catch your breath. "W-who are w-we gonna take dowwn first?"

"Excellent question!" she says, turning to pick up the tablet PC and pressing one of her fingers to a much smaller biometric reader to the right of the screen. The screensaver disappears, revealing a SFPD informational display on a gang you're all too familiar with. "We are going to deliver justice to the School of Merman."

"They're from Nevvada," you add as you sit down again and watch the screen. You've done cursory research in your spare time. "Their leader is some _actual mutant_." Unlike your previous reference to mutations with an adjective that began with A, this one comes more out of a habitual sense of contempt, and not just because you've already reminded yourself not to act so contemptuous in front of a mutant that was only an arm-twitch from snapping you in two. (Again with the torn in half references. It's almost becoming a fetish at this point.)

The only good photos of him are typically blurry security camera photos of him in the exact same Grease throwback getups as his henchmen. The only thing you notice is that he's got human-shaded skin and seadweller ears. You can't see his face behind his bandana.

Your innate nautical aristocrat curses his very existence as much as actual-actual mutants, which today is a semi-derogatory term for trolls with type 4M blood. The designation in itself is simply a re-designation of what was once type 1A, done primarily for donation and political correctness purposes.

Either designation described a bizarre anomaly in which mutants were able to survive with _human_ blood for all formerly-acceptable scientific intents and purposes. Anomalous, that's the word. The scientific term. You'd probably say abomination out loud in a less controlled environment as this. Enough citizens of Old Alternia did to warrant the infamous Green-Red Purges. But your boat of thought is drifting off again. And besides, you're presumably working with the Green in the Green-Red binary right now.

"W-we'll need to find out w-what they're plannin'." Your fingers work at a series of prompts on the screen to display a map of recent crimes allegedly linked to the Mermen. There are at least 15 of them across the entire City and County area, but you smile a little inside at the four of them shaded a bright blue, specifically one in Inner Sunset. The SCU designated those incidents with the "supercriminal intervention" tag. "Is that just the first night?" you add, your inner smile masked by a very outward fear.

"They've been quiet since then," Uroboros explains, pinching the map inward to zoom it out to the rest of the Bay Area. "Right now they're fencing everything they could escape with across the East Bay and Valley."

"Which'll make them impossible to track," you add despondently, hanging your head a little. "W-we're too late."

"Not necessarily," she continues analytically. "When a gang commits so many crimes simultaneously, more often than not it's a precursor to something larger and more focused than before."

"Like...a statement?" You'd know a thing or two about making them.

"Yes, precisely. An introduction. We need to find out what they intend to do with all of their newly acquired funds."

"And we can start..." Another flick of your finger brings up a set of very recent mugshots. "...with the ones we apprehended."

The way you and Uroboros are able to achieve such a harmonious flow of logic is sweet mystery music to your earfins. And curiously, the world around you.

_Maybe I'm amazed at the way you love me all the time...  
_

"D'you hear that?" you suddenly ask, looking around. The sound is almost crystal clear in your ears.

With a flick of her finger on the tablet screen, she brings down the message bar to find a song file consisting of mostly random symbols playing on her tablet. "That's odd. I don't recall adding any music to this tablet..."

_And maybe I'm amazed at the way I leave you..._

"W-well you're doin' a bang-up job'a projectin' it onto the speakers," you huff.

"...I hear it too, but there aren't any speakers here apart from the tablet and...that one," she replies, looking quizzically up at the rafters. You follow your gaze after hers, spotting nothing but an old intercom speaker that clearly is not the kind that can broadcast a live performance from the late 1970s like you were actually there.

And just like that, it seems, the music suddenly fades away. Like it was only there while you were concentrating. You only barely catch the word "Mull" on the tablet message bar before it suddenly disappears as fast as the museum ship guide suddenly appears at the top of the stairs.

"Excuse me, we're clo- oh."

"We were actually just about to leave," Uroboros suddenly begins, getting up. She smiles back (down?) at you as she beckons you to follow, the surprised guide recoiling from the staircase too quickly for you to see how much shock and or bafflement lined her face.

You get back onto your feet too, shaking your legs a little before following after her.

"W-wait, w-where are w-we headed now?"

"That's a good question," she replies cheekily. "Where do _you_ want to go?"

You blush, and not just because you are kinda staring at her muscled ass from a step down.

"Uh..."

**== > Eridan: Know where you have to go.  
**

* * *

  **48th & Taraval Compound  
10:15pm**

You are currently Skyhorsedad and you are 95% sure where you have to go to properly incriminate your charge.

Getting in wasn't so hard, since you have the ability to _fly_ , gogdammit. When the front door was locked, you could just hover up and over the roof and go in through the now-disused courtyard obstacle course. Your path inward took you gingerly through the main control room _you_ helped set up. The screens are currently in their idle state, Atlantis Industries factory logos blinking from side to side as you take a brief hover-around at what is now a clearly-battered husk of a jetbike with cowling in _your_ image. A jetbike that once mounted a Crosshairs laying gutted on a nearby worktable.

Now it's time to head upstairs to wherever he stores the rest of his equipment. If your charge kept any secrets, he sure as shit wouldn't keep them in the most obvious access point. You taught him that basic stratagem yourself.

You make it to the third and top floor of this building to find a sparsely-furnished but definitely once-occupied living quarters. There's a bed, a door leading to the bathroom, and the closet.

This has to be it. The closet, that is. Whatever Eridan has really been hiding is in this closet. You can feel the suspense building up in your spinal column like a cliffhanger in E-major.

You move a fin up to the handle and your attention is suddenly diverted to the window where a large flash of light seems to have slowly streaked to the ground without leaving a mark. You hover back down the stairs to the garage area, taking a precursory peep from the second floor to see if whatever that was made it inside. Your body tenses up from the spur of the moment, as you wonder who _else_ could know about his recently-installed advanced tracking capabilities.

When you can confirm that nobody is actually in the garage, you make your way to the door. You steel yourself to abscond through the courtyard door from whence you came if whoever or whatever that is on the other side of the door poses an immediate threat to your life. Not that you can't defend yourself, but even a hardy Skyhorse has to know his limits.

"...surprised Detective Callie never found out I was here." Eridan's muffled voice from behind the door un-steels you, transforming your alertness to curiosity.

"She still won't know after tonight," comes another voice. Deep yet feminine, with a smooth British accent that's more London than Eridan's Northern. "Shall we go in?"

You furrow your brow as you hover about a foot back from your position. You never considered that Eridan would be going after a potential matesprit _and_ that he could attract her by setting up an advanced control and monitoring center.

"I'm actually already late for dinner. I'll just dash in an' dowwnload w-what w-we need here an' w-we can carry on our invvestigation at my actual hivve. Hopefully he won't be h-"

He doesn't open the door because you do, and the impromptu congratulatory monologue you thought you could prepare suddenly stops before you even get a whinny out.

The first thing you see outside is Eridan holding out an HID keyfob close to the door lock, his eyes close to bulging fish-like out his sockets at the sight of you in his mini-lair. He sees you being shocked at the second thing you're seeing.

If you didn't know better, you'd swear you'd just seen Eridan brought to his compound by a tall, winged, naked, green giant(ess?) with a similar expression on her(?) face.

You then proceed to pass out, which is indicated by you slowly float-leaning onto the doorway like you let yourself drift away on a current. You can hear Eridan yelping in distress before he and whatever the heck brought him here rushing to keep you from keeling completely over.

Before your thought processes shut down for the next few minutes, you swear by all the horrorterrors that the first thing you're going to do when you wake up is have a long, very stern and very fatherly talk with your charge.

==> **ACT_PROLOGUE END**

**[REDIRECT MESSAGES/NEW]**

_"I can hear the sirens burning, red lights turning / I can't turn back now, So hold on tight_

_I don't know where the lights are taking us / But something in the night is dangerous / And nothing's holding back the two of us / Baby this is getting serious_

_Oh, oh, oh oh oh / D-da-d-dangerous"_

_\- Troll Kenny G, "Champagne feat. Troll Adele"_


	12. ==> INTER...LUDE

**== > FILE 11 OPEN**

**== > REDIRECT INTERLUD 1**

**[Major Entertainment Studio Theme Park]**  
**Orlando, FL  
****Sweeps ago, but not too many...**  

You are Eridan Ampora, four sweeps old, and you are having the time of your life.

You're smiling fin-to-fin as the famous Ogredad lusus of the popular movie franchise is letting you ride his shoulders, one hand on one of his antennae(?) and the other clutching a stick of cotton candy. Even if it is clearly some landdweller being paid barely subsistence wages to roast inside this mascot suit to entertain people one-third his age, you are 100% scientifically certain you have made his work week.

**== > Okay just stop with the tribute to some dead webcomic already.**

* * *

**Vita Grocery & Liquor**  
**43rd & Taraval**  
**San Francisco, CA**  
**10:30 pm**

"Frankie," you mutter as you practically appear out of thin air at the doorway of an extremely boxy two-story building, out of sight of a twiggy late-20-something Filipino man with a buzzcut and a thrift-shop sweater assembling some shelves behind the counter.

"Hey Itch." The shopkeeper recognizes you without even looking at you. Call it that little pulse of time readjusting itself to you when you come out of your rush mode.

Compared to the rest of Sunset, the building is remarkably well-preserved for what would otherwise pass for just another near-ghetto convenience store, repainted as many times as it's been tagged to the point where you could draw a bullseye on the alley side wall and play darts. The shelves are stocked with the kind of "neighborhood grocer" fare that could otherwise be found at the Safeway on Noriega for cheaper.

"Doin' alright?" he asks, as he continues to place and adjust shelves behind the reinforced Plexiglas scratch-it counter.

"Yeah, same-old." you reply as you shift over to the counter, not giving him a second glance.

This is one of the few stores that you don't filch from on a regular basis. Semi-regular, to be sure, but you've known the owner since you were both always on the brink of dropping out of high school for one reason or another. Plus he isn't bothered by your...altered appearance since that fateful night in Stockton.

You justify what you take as off-the-books protection fees. You wouldn't want your favorite watering hole coming under some other gang's umbrella as much as you don't want it to go under, period.

"Lotsa empty shelves there, Frankie," you begin, eyeing the well-lit racks behind the counter, which contrast starkly with the rest of the store and the flickering fluorescent lights. "Nice-ones though."

"Could've sworn they had stuff on 'em a second ago," he shrugs, a hint of enthusiasm seeping through his sarcasm. "I found a supplier for some pretty nice booze. Talking 50 plus before tax, per bottle. They're gonna be unloading here in a bit. Might as well make 'em look nice."

You smile and purse your lips as you try to visualize the selection behind the pseudo-plastic pull-down barrier, as well as what kind of cocktails you can mix up with your staple energy drinks.

"Yeah, I'll let you pick half a rack," Frankie adds intuitively before waving you off. "But not the top shelf stuff, okay?"

"C'mon man," you say almost seductively, leaning forward with both elbows on the counter. "For old-time's sake."

" _One_ item above fifty, okay?" Frankie chuckles, shaking his head. "You're lucky I'm getting this shit at a four-finger discount."

The mention of the number 1 is what always gets you. Call it your quirk or something, like your erratic tempo speech. "Who ya' gettin-it-from, anyway?"

He sighs and hangs his head. "Look, they're not my usual distributors. But the only thing going up faster than their prices are the bills."

This 'old place' used to be his parents'. They still manage it in the daylight hours, but you know they're already pushing 60. Their son never got over eventually being kicked out of high school, and is probably gonna end up here until Google or SkaiaNet decides to drop one of their fancy complexes in the city like another block in a giant fucking globe-spanning chessboard.

If anything, you repay his protection by cheering him up.

"They ain't Crew, are they?" you ask suspiciously.

"Fuck no," he says with a depressed smirk. "I'm not touching the Crew with a ten-inch pole. These guys though...they've got the best stuff at a low enough price to supply every goddamn Googlite west of 19th and a buddy of mine got me the hookup for the first batch."

You're not one for tactics and strategy but you don't have to be hopped up on 5-Hour-4-Loko to know he's gone (gray-close-to-)black (market) and he's never coming back.

"So you _can_ afford to let me have somethin' from the top shelf, right?"

And who is he to refuse? It's not like you're extorting him or anything, because everything you get from here goes down your gullet and not up the food chain.

"Look, I'm gonna be honest. I'm kinda leery of these guys. If you can hang around behind me and make sure this ain't a bust or I get jumped I'll let you have one of the most expensive item I can price tag." He then leans forward on the counter, with a look on his face that can be described as stern pleading on the border of desperation. "Just one."

You grin from ear-slit to ear-slit and hold out a green lycra-esque hand. "Deal."

**== > Itchy: Guard the deal.**

* * *

**Barbasol West Stadium**  
**Santa Clara, CA**  
**2:40 pm**

You are now Snowman and you weren't expecting this point of view from this story, did you?

"Good to see you too, Bree," WQ begins as you appear in a roomy yet otherwise unoccupied VIP box in the NFL's third newest stadium, overlooking a preseason game for the only pro football team in California to have never been to Los Angeles at some point in their history.

Which, sadly, still isn't saying much.

Far from any grandiose flashing of neon-green-and-white light, your ability to "warp" though space itself is signified by a muted glow and a dent in the visible light spectrum. None of your clothes are affected by it, and travel with you, from your black wide-brimmed hat to your trenchcoat down to your heels. It's a contrast to what Lieutenant Wendy Quistis likes to wear - a minimalist yet segmented off-gray long-sleeve shirt and pants that goes well with her lighter-colored hijab.

"Wendy," you reply politely, taking the closest seat and withdrawing your obsidian cigarette holder from your dark green trenchcoat. "How are things in the ivory tower?"

"The city's supervigilante count went up by precisely one, so it won't be too boring around headquarters anymore," she replies, that little hint of genuine enthusiasm flickering above her analytic nature.

"Just the supervigilantes?" Even she knows that there's more than one class of super-'criminal' in the Bay Area.

"And the good Doctor probably notified you of the bikers from Nevada."

"He's keeping his eye on it," you inform her without hesitation.

"As he always does," Wendy replies knowingly, turning away from the preseason excitement outside to face you. "They haven't hit any Felt businesses yet, although that's more down to luck than skill. We're still trying to establish a pattern."

The insinuation being that the boss tends to have you or his notorious "right hand" enforcer _personally_ resolve a matter that is too important for the other members of the Primary when Felt interests get hit. Such is the eternal game of mental chess the two of you play. You can't fault her for running a tight ship; even if the Doctor knew why the Mermen hit the businesses they did, he certainly hasn't disclosed why.

You chuckle before taking a drag. "Doc's had Stephen taking care of interventions as of late, even if we do spend more for cleanup."

"So this visit is for leisure?," she replies. You can just see her reflection in the window, her brown eyes darting glances between each of the endzones below. There's a muffled roar of applause from the half-filled stands before she turns and takes a seat on the lounger on the other side of the coffee table from you.

"Lunch break." You respect her enough not to blow smoke anywhere near her direction. "I can afford to take a few minutes off. How are things in your empire?"

"Whitley's last year. He's been the only one holding up the team since the Breath of God," she sighs. "Poor guy. At least the fantasy guys at HQ will still have something to fight over."

"I suppose if it'll cheer you up from another year of Bay Area sports misfortune," you reply, casual yet reassuring as much as you don't care for the trillion-dollar syndicate that is American professional sports, "There's a lot more we can catch up on."

**== > WQ: Catch up.**

* * *

**43rd & Taraval**  
**10:45 pm**

You're now Itchy again and you've caught up to Frankie after darting around the block for parked police cars. You're leaning against the corner of the building where the sidewalk meets the alley, watching what's going on just inside. A slightly dingy late-model Ford commercial van pulled into the alley, and Frankie went out to meet their occupants right before you shifted to the corner you're at now.

God, you feel like you're in one of your video games. Specifically that one involving mobsters in the 1950s.

Frankie's carrying under that old jacket of his. A tazer, of course. Boss knows how hard it is to acquire firearms, even legally, in the City and County. The two greasers that step out though? You'd be surprised if they're not carrying guns from that era as well.

Why he's wearing shorts though in 50 degree weather, well, that's something you still couldn't understand.

"Hey, bud," the taller Greaser begins, "You the owner?"

"Yeah," Frankie says, "Owner and proprietor."

"Sure, whatever. Got the cash?" the taller one struts toward him confidently, and Frankie withdraws a thin stack of bills from his pocket. The shorter one swipes it from his hand and counts them. Frankie withdraws, clearly intimidated.

"I have the rest once I know I'm not buying apple juice," Frankie stammers. Despite knowing you won't bolt on a easy payday (paydrink?), he's clearly having rookie night-time deal jitters.

"Sure thing, pal. Six boxes, coming right up." The greasers don't sound like they're about ready to take advantage of their customer's lack of confidence.

You withdraw behind the corner when you think one of them is looking in your direction, give it a second or two. The first thing you see when you check again is now there's six plastic shipping totes in between Frankie and the people he's buying from, all with known retailer markings on them.

He pries the totes open, checking their contents and nodding at each one, occasionally checking to see if the seals are still on some of the better bottles. At least he's smart enough to know if someone's did some unwelcome substitutions.

"Yep, that's the shit," he says, picking up a bottle that you can tell is expensive from 50 feet away.

"Great," the taller greaser says, offering a hand. "Pleasure doin' business with you."

"Hey, the best business is repeat business," Frankie replies, trying to sound satisfied as he hands over the rest of the cash. The taller one counts it and gives a satisfied chuckle to his accomplice.

"You got our number, just give us a ring when you need a re-up," the shorter one replies before the both of them get back in the van, chuckling darkly.

You wait until the van's safely out of the back corner before you shift up to the boxes.

**== > Itchy: Sample the merch.**

* * *

**You (cannot sample the merch because you are now Skyhorsedad and you) have logged into Serious Business Client v.06.22a Revision 29 Build 1987.**  
**The following matters have been submitted in a frank and forthright manner for pipefan413's judicious approval.**

fromXeroxtoHerox: possible that wearable productivity singularity achievable within a decade.  
triplewindsor191: Including subcutaneous?  
7seasaddle: sigh.  
triplewindsor191: g&s 3s. What's the problem now?  
7seasaddle: charge continues to act unseemly for his age. completely friwolous and unrelated to intended purpose.  
fromXeroxtoHerox: was this re: that impressive garage setup  
7seasaddle: yes. also shovved up with a member of the scrim comm in a complete lack of attire.  
triplewindsor191: Understand your frustration, however please refrain from using that shorthand re: pwsuper in pf413 rooms.  
fromXeroxtoHerox: all insinuations notwithstanding, context on his companion though?  
7seasaddle: unfortunately lost consciousness following startling rewelation. vvoke up at primary sf residence earlier today.  
7seasaddle: charge vvas actually cooking breakfast for me. a much more tolerable 1st in comparison.  
fromXeroxtoHerox: and very appreciative of him.  
7seasaddle: have yet to give stern fatherly admonishment newertheless. charge left for class @ aau after leaving it on table.  
triplewindsor191: Can you confirm no favors exchanged between charge and dubiously clad sp?  
7seasaddle: not afaik.  
7seasaddle: at least appeal of nevv spavvn denial novv has ewidence.  
triplewindsor191: Too late to reconsider?

_crustybutnottheburger has commenced dialogue.  
_

crustybutnottheburger: WHWT'S UP EVEERRYBODY  
triplewindsor191: Not the quality level of this room.  
7seasaddle: typical charge dilemma. aggrawation increased substantially.  
crustybutnottheburger: JKUDST READS IT. LOLOIL MNAKLED.  
fromXeroxtoHerox: 2 much to req some sense of decency?  
crustybutnottheburger: SRTILL THO. UR CHERGE IS IN URBOEOS INNWER CIRCLE TYHAT'S COL.  
7seasaddle: implying that is beneficial somehovv. charge acquired an entire compound for possibly friwolous purposes.  
7seasaddle: charge also probably renting it out to androgynous dolphin scrim too.  
crustybutnottheburger: BRRRUUUUHHHH Y9U SHOIULD BEW PROIUDF OF HIS WORKL.  
crustybutnottheburger: I MEAN UM.  
crustybutnottheburger: IT SSMS HE HAS EJOYUED WHART HE;S MADE AND PEREHAPS YOU CAN ENCOUERAGE MHIM INSTREAD. N TRY NOT TO ANGRLYT DOISCOURAGE MHIM AGSAION  
triplewindsor191: From what can be deciphered, sounds sensible enough  
triplewindsor191: You could enroll charge in Cal to pursue co. interest and keep him in surv. dist.  
crustybutnottheburger: I MEANM HWE LIKEWS SXIEMCE SO YOU CXAN ENROILKL HIM IN SCIEMNCE TJHIUNGS AND TURN HJIS HWQ INTO AS LAB.  
fromXeroxtoHerox: reduced expenditures from allowing charge to live in repurposed lab environment. win-win situation.  
triplewindsor191: Just dispose of pwsp related paraphernalia to greatly reduce risk of fatal SCU raid.  
crustybutnottheburger: HE CASMN WORK AMD STUDY FROM, HJOME  
7seasaddle: despite reckless and flagrant disregard for sb etiquette, genuinely believe you folks can understand predicament.  
7seasaddle: vvill need time to re consider. excuse me.  
7seasaddle: also crusty, you are owerdue for manners lesson.  
7seasaddle: <3<

**== >Skyhorsedad: Excuse yourself.**

* * *

**Vita Grocery & Liquor  
11:11 pm**

You are now Itchy and you've given Frankie all of about two seconds for him to enjoy the look of his new liquor shelves before you finally make good on your excuse to try something expensive. In this case, it's a bottle of from-Scotland-scotch whose vintage is probably older than you are. You even brought out the drinking glass from his office, prepped with ice cubes from his mini fridge. And you know where these things are because you also know Frankie's parents could never allow him to drown his sorrows in his house.

"You know, you did a pretty good job of disguising the gap there," Frankie replies, observing his freshly arranged shelf like it's the first legitly nice thing to happen to him in a while.

"Hey, I like to celebrate-a-job well done," you reply, suspecting that it actually is as you pour out enough on the rocks for you to toast. "A toast to this place finally lookin' better."

"Cheers," Frankie replies, raising his glass, although you've skipped the clinking and gone right to the chugging. He didn't seem to mind. "To this whole goddamn neighborhood finally looking up."

"And-to-payin' your rent."

**== > Neighborhood: Look up.**

* * *

**Maritime Historical Park  
7:20 pm**

You are now Eridan and...you're looking up. Well, more to the side.

You're sprawled on the grass in front of the Ghirardelli factory not too far from the Hyde Street Pier where you last met Uroboros, watching the setting sun turn the clouds above into glittering cinders as the cooling air lays a blanket over you and your sweater and striped pants. It's so tempting to finally succumb to slumber after your mostly sleepless 24 hours, but your fear compels you to stay awake.

This compulsion sourced itself in your cellphone, and the message that's weighed it down like a brick in your pocket since you were in class.

You knew the message was from Skyhorsedad. Who else would text you in the middle of class after you had to make him breakfast (and mostly on memory from occasionally watching the family chefs cook) after discovering that you very likely did superheroing on the side? Maybe Fef. Gog, you always hope that one day she'll find a moment to text you back in between whatever she's doing in New York or with her own spawn sibling down in Rio. But your mind is wandering from the obvious again.

And the 'obvious' is that you still have absolutely no idea what your lusus wants to do with you.

Especially when the only content of the e-mail message was a link to UC Berkeley's admissions website.

That's where he'll announce he's finally gotten around to finally disowning you by letting you get ground up into chum in the _public_ education system. On the other hand, it's UC Freaking Berkeley. As in home of _the_ National Lab Named After Berkeley where world-famous _science_ happens. If he wanted to disown you, then letting you stay here and enroll in Berkeley sure is a doubly passive-aggressive reacharound way of doing so.

All things considered, all courses of action and strategies run through have led to this single inexorable course. You're going to have to go back to Parkmerced and finally face the consequences of your actions. Uroboros isn't going to be there. She had to leave after you soon as that Uber arrived to get you and Skyhorsedad back to your condo, and the shock of the moment kept him quite knocked the fuck out until you had to leave for class.

It's now a matter of when, not if you'll deal with a challenge greater than supervigilantes, supercriminals and the SCU put together: dealing with Skyhorsedad knowing what you do.

**== > Eridan: Stop running from destiny.**

* * *

**(You cannot stop running from destiny right now because you are pipefan413 and) you have commenced dialogue.**

fromxeroxtoherox: g&s pf413. missed another fun crusty convo.  
triplewindsor191: Recently posited that pf413 and crusty need to stop running from destiny and face each other.  
fromxeroxtoherox: suspect they have already done so. cues from prev convos.  
triplewindsor191: Amazed at strikingly sensible conclusions reached despite pf413's perpetual silence.  
fromxeroxtoherox: would suggest crusty & 7gs meet but subject matter inapp for pf413 room  
pipefan413: Not necessarily.  
triplewindsor191: !

**== > Wait, don't change perspective now, we're finally gonna meet Dadbert!**

* * *

**Somewhere South of Market  
6:12 pm**

Well, that's what you get for complaining about the shift changes. Instead, you are now Callie Ohpeee and constructing a new outfit for Uroboros is actually pretty fUn! ^u^

The loft your day-job persona resides in is sparsely furnished. The living room doesn't even have a TV, a late model netbook in its place streaming whatever channel you put on just for ambient noise. Instead, your living room it serves as your workshop. Several tables containing fabric and sewing implements are strategically placed around an almost 8-foot-tall fitting frame that you had to construct and test yourself so whatever you fit on it would also fit on a larger, green humanoid version of yourself with large wings without slipping off.

Fortunately you already did the frame testing with your first and now destroyed outfit, so you can focus on the challenge of designing the next iteration of Uroboros' outfit.

You need a step stool to reach the taller parts of the mannequin, where you must still face the challenge of designing a hood and shoulder cloaks for a large green humanoid version of yourself with large wings. As it stands, or rather, as you stand, you are currently a smaller, still green humanoid version of your large green version of yourself. In light-gray-and-green patterned pajamas.

The prostheses you use for your day job are in the bathroom.

You have both hands on a tape measure and a scissors between your lips as you decide how much fabric will be needed to most faithfully interpret your sketches and the appended peer critiques, the evening news getting to the next article on the agenda.

"...the bodies were found by waste management personnel just off..."

The mention of bodies catches your attention, causing you to turn your head, and your arms to stop in place on the shoulder fabric. Crime stories usually tend to do that, stories of crimes anybody could say they should have been there to stop. But one of the first things you learned as a superhero was that you can't possibly be everywhere, especially when you have the West Coast's second largest metropolitan area to cover.

Rarely, as they do now, do the stories keep your attention. Because there will come those times when one crime leads to another - one that you can stop.

"...are alleged to be members of the School of Mermen biker gang, under investigation by district law enforcement for a series of robberies and break-ins that occurred last week."

You get back to measuring, this time at an even more determined pace. You'll want to get as much as possible done before Monitoring calls you back to Tiburon Station.

Whatever's about to happen, you'll need to get yourself ready as quickly as possible in order to find out what it is, and stop it before it actually happens...and you hope that you won't be the only one to tackle this before your "unit" does.

This should - with all hope - be a fun few days.

**== > INTERLUDE END**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"I have seen them riding seaward on the waves / combing the white hair of the waves blown back / When the wind blows the water white and black._
> 
> _We have lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown / Till human voices wake us, and we drown."_ \- Troll Rae Sremmurd, from the epic "Five On It"


	13. ==> FILE 1.01

**== > RETRIEVE WEB/BASED/SCU/BIO**  
At 4:13 AM on 12 June 199X, an unidentified extraterrestrial object impacted Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay, emitting a wave of energy that affected millions of people living around the Bay Area. The panic it caused attracted supercriminals across the world to the Bay Area, causing a destructive rampage that cost billions of dollars in damage and left thousands dead.

But from this chaos, an organization would rise up from the ranks of the oppressed and reclaim San Francisco from the supercriminal threat.

Signed as a mayoral executive order during the height of the crisis with the approval of the City Council, the Angel Island Act immediately banned and criminalized all superpower-related and -organized activity within the City and County of San Francisco. The Act also authorized the creation of a dedicated task force comprised of law enforcement organizations, supercriminal experts and private security organizations to enforce it.

Once deployed, the SuperCrime Unit swiftly neutralized the majority of supercriminal threats in the City and County of San Francisco within 72 hours. These included new and old supercriminal operations as well as so-called "unofficial refugee zones" where innocent civilians were imprisoned against their will in squalid conditions.

Today the SuperCrime Unit now monitors and responds to supercriminal activity in San Francisco, Marin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties from its headquarters in Tiburon and other stations across the San Francisco Bay Area. The SCU has also been consulted for crisis management in supercriminal crises across the United States.

**== > EXIT**

**== > RETRIEVE ARC.01**

**[ARC 2 LOADING...]**

**[...BECAUSE THAT'S HOW WE NUMBERED IT FOR SOME REASON...]**

* * *

**Somewhere near Balboa Park, San Francisco**  
**1:20 am**

You are Dauphine and you are once again about to die. This time, however, there is a scientifically-deduced extremely high probability that it is actually going to be a thing that will imminently happen to you.

The SFPD have already surrounded the warehouse you and Uroboros raided earlier, their red and blue blinkers flickering against the walls for at least a two-block radius. The SCU and their all-black murderfleets are undoubtedly not too far behind. Two gangs worth of henchmen backed up against each other with Uroboros in the vicinity is too big a catch for either law enforcement agency to pass up.

But you're not in the warehouse. You're in an alley halfway across the City and County from there, which means you're going to die alone. Your jetbike is tipped over with the engine dead like a miniature Silicon Valley graveyard, next to a collapsed Harley-Davidson cruiser.

You are slumped against the nearby wall, your superhero leotard torn and battered not just from what happened earlier, but also from the crash that took out both you and your target's vehicles.

You have one hand on your ~~wand~~ concentrated energy-discharging personal defense weapon aimed up at said target, who is standing on two feet and confidently about to turn the tables on his hunter with an ornate gold-plated Springfield 1911 pointed between your eyes. Well, he can't see your eyes behind your helmet's tinted visor. But you can see that his smile is all fangs, his ears(?!) flaring up in anticipation of his finest moment.

And yet, that's not the worst part about your imminent death.

The reason that the Merman is smiling is because your concentrated energy-discharging personal defense weapon is once again blinking red from a lack of energy. You're going to die alone, helpless and defenseless.

"Any last words before I hang your draggy wastechute out to dry?" he snarls triumphantly under that smart-mouthing accent of his.

You really only have time to say one before your thinkpan gets .45 caliber ventilated.

And that one word you speak changes everything.

**== > Wait...what did you say?!**

* * *

To put the word you said into context, we have to go back one week.

**Goodwill**  
**Van Ness Avenue**  
**5:44 pm**

You are now currently Eridan Ampora and you are still (trying to look) fabulous, for the burden of a superhero's responsibility to the people they are obligated to save is truly heavy upon your shoulder.

You're trying on various black leather jackets, undershirts and dresses in the dressing room, along with matching accessories. And poses. Fashionable poses and superhero poses you won't actually end up using when you introduce yourself to your enemies. You can take your time to find the look you want, being the only person needing the dressing rooms with this many items.

If this is technically going to be your first assignment against the bikers, you'll especially want to get that look down  _fuckin' pat_ while your "official" outfit is drying out at your HQ. And it's something that you'll willingly immerse yourself in to take your mind off the fact that you haven't seen Skyhorsedad since he sent you the link to UC Berkeley's application website the other evening.

Which is to say, it only barely numbs that weight on your opposite shoulder. He might as well be floating right outside the dressing room right fucking now instead of presumably being off somewhere explaining your recent expenditures to the Board.

After spending the better part of an hour mixing and matching, you revert back into your 'standards' and head to the checkout counter. You try not to make eye contact at the cashier ringing up every item in your tote-cart, instead fidgeting a bit with the prepaid debit card you fish out of your pocket.

Barring Skyhorsedad suddenly appearing right behind you, the fact that you own a prepaid debit card is the most shameful thing about your purchase. Seriously, a prepaid card is something that prison gangs would use to coordinate their trades from the inside, not something a respectable seadweller would use. Still, you have to keep realistic expectations about it.

At this point, the Board probably won't buy the notion of these particular items being work-or-school-related expenses on a card they can trace _directly_ to you.

And you won't exactly have to worry if you die on the job...right?

* * *

**North Beach**  
**Earlier That Day**

It's a (relatively) warm day for San Francisco, the morning fog already cleared out for some beautiful Bay Area sunshine in a part of town that could just barely pass for its original incarnation as the city's old Ital-Alternian immigrant district under all the new faux-throwback restaurants with menus that are about as pricey as the old holdouts. You're in a minimalist violet sun dress and matching heels topped with a decently-brimmed sunhat as you make your way to the park behind the North Beach public library.

You immediately spot Detective Callie on a nearby bench, trading glances between the tablet computer you recognize as Uroboros' and young adult parkgoers milling about for something to pop up (or out of their virtual host plushes) on the latest update of Fiduspawn Mobile. She's put away her work tux for something less imposing - a light green jacket and jeans, as well as sneakers instead of heels.

You still act wary of your surroundings though. As a presumably off-duty SCU agent she's still authorized to carry that Duke Mk. 10 revolver somewhere on her person. You also presume that it does not preclude her finishing the job she faked starting in Golden Gate Park and shooting you in the face with it, _and_ getting a commendation from the SCU for it.

"You look superb in that dress, by the way," she begins, noticing you making your way over to her.

You blush sincerely. "Thanks. I picked it out m'self."

Then she begins a new line of inquiry. "Do you think you look good in that dress though?"

"Um, w-why?" you ask, your brow furrowing.

"The only thing that matters is if you think you're pretty in that dress," Callie counsels, before almost depressingly dismissing it. "Or at least it should be the only thing that matters when it comes to opinions of beauty these days."

"W-well, I'm not here for upliftin' advvice right noww," you blurt out with initial frustration that quickly peters out. "But thanks...for the compliment at least."

"You're very welcome," she replies very politely as you take a seat.

"Your friends aren't lurking around, are they?" The only SuperCrime Unit vehicle you saw on the way up from your residence was a cruiser parked by the Muni stop at Taco Bell just past Sunset. Callie probably has hers parked across the way, too.

"No, they're not." Callie laughs in a manner more suited to her superhero form(?). The higher pitch of voice in her smaller alter ego doesn't put you off as much as the fact that this is still the same Detective Callie that, lest you forget, remains one whim away from **VENTILATING YOUR THINKPAN.**

"An' nobody w-will be listenin' but us?"

"You can frisk me if you want," she says, showing you the volume settings on the tablet. Both the speakers and the mic display their respective muted icons, but you can never tell with technology you haven't personally secured.

"I'll take your w-word for it."

The two of you sit next to each other on the bench. She sips at her tea a couple of times before the conversation begins in earnest.

"W-we w-were talkin' about the Mermen w-when w-we last left off..." you begin.

"That we were," Callie nods before she brings up a document containing a list of stolen goods on the tablet screen. "The Mermen have been very busy as of late, no doubt fencing their stolen goods to people that will buy them. They're edging into typical booster markets; razors, laundry detergent, liquor and spirits."

"I thought their leader w-was porpoisely'a the nautical persuasion," you say, not realizing you've let a fish pun slip through the net, "They're not gonna stop there."

"Criminal greed doesn't have a species or blood color, despite our justice system's completely unequal treatment," Callie adds firmly, before continuing down the list to items with names that would attract the attention of mid-level government enforcement agents. "But I will concur that fencing stolen goods won't be their primary source of income."

She then pulls up a list of businesses that were hit marked on a map, and many of their names have categories in common. "They went after a lot of easy targets, like convenience stores and pharmacies. Ephedrine products for local meth labs, and painkillers for the Midnight Crew-"

"...the Midnight Crew?!" you suddenly exclaim, recalling your test-that-wasn't, before looking around to see if anyone else noticed. The locals have given you a couple of curious looks, but quickly return to what they were doing.

"The Crew have been attempting to restart their _Kilometre Rouge_ production in the months since they lost their main facility in Seattle," Callie continues, pronouncing the designer performance-enhancing drug's international name in what you can presume is perfect French. "KMR's formula includes a high concentration of Schedule II painkillers in order to increase the user's resistance to pain. The Crew are still trying to keep a low profile, so they won't be using their own thugs to acquire the ingredients."

"So w-we can track the bikers based on w-who's buyin'," you mutter, before verbally expressing your lack of confidence that it narrows down the list of search areas. "But howw do w-we knoww w-where to find the buyers?"

"Fortunately, that legwork is mostly complete," she explains, bringing up a video on the screen. "Security camera footage caught some bikers giving a sample to someone on the SFPD's watchlist."

The goon in question is one C-10-blood named Danern Spolko. He already has an SFPD mugshot with typical medium-build sneer, neatly slicked-back hair and a goatee. And a black suit because Crew.

The charges apparently didn't stick if Spolko's still out on the streets.

"An' he's w-waitin' on the sale," you conclude.

"Exactly. He's enough of a creature of habit that he won't be too difficult to locate, but he's not who we're after right now."

You breathe a small sigh of relief. You'd count yourself lucky that the Crew weren't after you specifically at Pier 43, and they still haven't sent someone to finish you off.

_Yet._

"It's easier to locate the bikers this way instead of scannin' the entire Bay Area w-when they're prowlin'." you deduce, to which Callie nods with a smile. "He's the bait."

"You're definitely getting the hang of strategy!" she compliments, probably unaware of what you'd almost call a fetish for strategy, before she continues. "I'll let you know if Spolko has been sighted, and you should be able to follow him until he meets with the bikers selling to him."

"Then it's just a matter of following the bikers to one or more'a their rackets." you conclude. "W-what about Spolko? W-we should probably leavve him for the SFPD or somethin'."

"If you can record their meeting, that's great, but right now our focus is on finding out what their profit is going to be used for," she explains, closing Spolko's profile before giving you a look of concern. "And above all, not getting caught."

You nod quietly, assuming that Uroboros doesn't quite trust you to climb the superhero echeladder to International Syndicator just yet. Gog knows there's justification after you bit off more than you could chew in the amateur field of persons-with-superpowers at least once.

"The bikers should lead you to the stolen goods, the money, or one of their headquarters as long as you don't spook them," she concludes, before handing you a slip of paper containing a phone number. "We'll keep in contact via this number."

You take your smartphone from your purse and take a deep breath before opening your address book app and entering the number into speed dial under a gravely ironic entry: SCU. Your social-media-savvy left hand gets all that done in about 15 seconds.

"I hate to sound needy, but..."

"Please, ask away!" she replies as anxiously as a teacher responding to her best student.

"...d'you havve a vvehicle I could borrow? I'vve kind'a been barred from gettin' my super-vvehicle back up to w-workin' condition."

You had to stoop to using public transit to get here, but that's not going to be able to keep up or arrive on time that late in that part of town to catch up to bikers. Using one of San Francisco's myriad of vehicle-sharing services for a stakeout will result in charges on your card/s and you'd rather not stoke the flames of suspicion any more than they are currently out of control.

"Two wheels or four?" she asks.

"Two...an' motorized, preferably," you reply, softly biting your lower lip.

"I was about to suggest a moped," Callie replies cheekily, to which you glare, "But I can requisition something from the impound this afternoon that should be able to keep up with them."

"Thanks," you reply with an exasperated huff, before pulling out a pocket mirror from your purse to fix your lipstick.

"...are you okay?" she suddenly asks.

"Yeah. Sort'a."

"Would you like to talk about it?" How she suddenly sounds more genuine to you than most mental health (so-called in your opinion) professionals you've dealt with in your existence quite simply flabbergasts you.

"N-no thanks. It's not w-work-related," you sigh, putting your smartphone back in your purse before closing your eyes and tilting your head back. "I just...I hope w-we're not just doin' the SCU's dirty work."

"The SCU prefers to do their dirty work themselves, fortunately for us," Callie laments, with just enough of a hesitation that it doesn't sound rehearsed as she looks at you hoping the two of you can really make a difference. "But while they're looking elsewhere in California for boogeymen, we're going to prove there is always a place for people to fight injustice, whether or not they have powers."

You sigh and look down at the walking path in front of you, grasping your purse tenuously. She had previously remarked how she didn't want to be part of the organization that wants to see both you and her alter ego's heads on their wall. Such is the nature of subterfuge.

"Are you sure you're okay?" she asks again.

"I'm fine-" you reply even more tersely, cutting yourself off before going over any number of the reasons you aren't and settling on one you think she'll like. "Just our first serious operation against actual fuckin' criminal organizations is all."

That's reason enough to reach across your back and pull you into a shoulder-to-shoulder. "We can accomplish this, Dauphine," she says reassuringly and soft enough so nobody else can hear. "Okay? Together."

You close your eyes and lean in, still wanting to believe that so much.

* * *

**Bayview**  
**Near the New Cantown Construction Zone**  
**12:23 am**

Bayview isn’t _that_ bad. Or hasn’t been that bad as of late. You’re still keeping an eye out from your stakeout position between two slightly disused buildings designated for renovation instead of demolition, arms crossed and fully concealed in shadow as you lean against the northern side corner of the alley and your current vehicle leaning on a stand opposite.

There are a lot of things you want to pay attention to other than your current vehicle.

Some of them are quite important, such as your lead-to-lead-you-to-the-actual-lead. Danern Spolko is leaning against the trunk of a very Midnight-Crew-esque black Potomac sedan, parked across and about a quarter-block down from your current location at a corner parking lot, and shivering a bit from preferring to keep a sharp look over function with his very Midnight-Crew-esque black suit and tie. He’s been waiting there just shorter than you have – which is about half an hour – and from the way he’s milling about he’s just about as displeased as you for having to wait.

At least he's not displeased _with_ you. Callie's surveillance patterns drew you here just as he pulled up, and you drove around the block to conceal yourself where you are now. If anything, your enthusiasm for this actually being real strategic intel gathering is doing as good a job keeping you warm as that formerly Fashion Focus leather jacket and torn denim you're wearing.

Some are slightly less important, such as the New Cantown buildings being constructed just to the north of your location. The myriad of curiously coral-esque cylindrical mixed-use buildings for low-income residents and small businesses are supposed to represent an actually genuine attempt to revitalize this part of the City and County.

Or they could just simply be a temporary wall to block the encroaching tech money creeping in from SoMa and Mission, as it slowly finishes consumes the entire city in unfathomable techie superficial...ust. Either way, the _semi de jure_ ban on mentioning anything about the famous superhero refugee zone didn't preclude people using it to become Mayor and then slapping the label on their new initiatives.

But we’re digressing, so we’ll instead describe what your motorcycle is for the reader wondering why you don’t want to look at it.

The vehicle Callie dragged out of the impound so you can go tailing villains tonight is for all intents and purposes a half-priced clone of a 1970s Honda CB. That is, nothing that law enforcement will actually miss when it comes to balancing its inventory with the shredder.

At least it’s not one of their scooters. Not that you (Dauphine, not the reader) have anything against scooters, especially vintage Piaggio Vespas. Plus you are technically trying to be relatively inconspicuous. But kicking wastechute is still in your perception as much about the appearance of kicking wastechute as it is the act of actually kicking wastechute. A motorcycle like this is one rung up on the vehiculadder from one of those faux-scooters. And you absolutely cannot look good running criminal wastechute off the road in a gogdamn motherfucking land-dwelling – oh, the bikers are coming.

The rumbling of their choppers heading in from up the street could probably be heard for a quarter mile. They park on the sidewalk and dismount, not removing their helmets.

You can tell which of them is carrying the goods. That’s the one riding the tourer bike, while he brought a buddy of his to provide escort riding in front of him. The two park their bikes in front of the car, with Spolko’s driver getting out to keep an eye on the both of them. Gog, you could rarely get a more stereotypical gang scene out of a video game. Both bikers have leather jackets with ornate Mermen insignias and denim, and although they're both wearing modern black helmets that conceal their faces you can only imagine how much of their olfactory nerves have been burned out due to hair gel and cheap cologne.

The bikers introduce themselves to the gangsters with firm handshakes before one of them retrieves a small sample of the merchandise they’re selling from inside their jacket. It's a little white bottle that's about the size of his fingerless-gloved hand, and he gives it a softball toss to Spolko, who somewhat awkwardly catches it with both hands.

You can’t see their faces from this angle but you can see his, and Spolko is almost scientifically skeptical of the goods he’s buying as he opens the bottle, and pours one of the pills out onto his hand, before comparing it to something that the driver shows him on a smartphone he pulls out. It looks like he still has some doubts until he actually pops the pill into his mouth and swallows it.

It also infers that Spolko is probably just more of an errand boy given his lack of pharmaceutical knowledge, but that's for another stakeout.

Spolko gestures to his driver to go back to the car, and you squint a little to see him ducking down to probably get something hidden inside the car. Whether that something was hidden in the footwell, driver's door or under the seats is irrelevant because he returns to Spolko with a standard-size paper shopping bag. The bikers respond by having one of them go back to the touring bike and take out one of those reusable shopping bags.

The biker holding that bag starts lining up the bottles on the closed trunk lid, and Spolko's driver shines the LED torchlight on his smartphone against them.

The deal ends amicably enough, though given your lack of firsthand eyewitness experience that bar is set at "not suddenly trying to knock each other off and keep the goods and the cash." The Crew and the Mermen take exchange each other's bags and head back to their respective vehicles.

You're already back on your own motorcycle and in gear (albeit with the headlight off) before the bags are even handed off. The bikers swivel around in a wide U-Turn and head back in the direction they came from, which means they pass you by.

You give them about half a block to let Spolko drive away forward through the alley that he parked in, before you pull out of the alley as quiet as your half-priced clone of a 1970s Honda CB will allow. You give it until the first corner you turn before you switch on your headlights, and keep about half a block distance as they roll past the New Cantown construction zones. Your lack of firsthand tailing experience sets that bar pretty high, because the video games usually have your vehicle approximately halfway across the map before they're supposed to detect you.

And then you realize that _they've_ probably realized you've been following them when they suddenly speed up and pull away from you. At this time of night, there's barely any traffic to stop them.

Your instincts cause you to accelerate to try to keep up. You don't want to bungle up your first official stakeout assignment this badly. And technically, _you_ don't. Your half-priced clone of a 1970s Honda CB does that when it fails to keep up, and before long the bikers are gone, their higher-powered engines echoing off the low-rise buildings South of Market.

You curse inwardly and outwardly, slamming your fist against your motorcycle's lone dial as the sinking feeling of unconscionable failure inundates your innards like, well, a sinking ship.

But the sound of their engines doesn't fade away.

Instead, they get louder. And it gives you just a faint sliver of hope.

Maybe they need to find another way around to where they're going and/or don't want to lure out the cops. Either way - if it's a faint sliver of hope, it's your faint sliver of power and goddamn will you extract every bit you can because you don't want to drown in your unconscionable failure on your very first official criminal stakeout.

Your bike gets back into gear with a sputter as you accelerate cautiously up the street. Your fin-ears would perk up more if they weren't tamped down by your helmet, but you are at least paying attention to whether the sounds of their bikes are getting louder or softer, over and above the din of your own motor. Maybe you can salvage something from your critical mistake.

You spontaneously decide to take a shortcut through a nearby alley before that faint sliver hope is dashed like a motorcycle flying off a cliff and landing on jagged rocks from 200 feet up, at the sight of a large touring bike pulling up at the alley's exit and blocking your way out. There's a bright glint in your motorcycle's rear view mirrors from the approaching beam of the other biker cutting off your way in.

They knew you were following them. So come back to _and_ for you.

And this time there's no cliff for you to drag them to their doom with. Or at least a convenient spot for you to ditch them in the icy waters of San Francisco Bay without the high-grade thermal insulation provided by your superhero outfit keeping you from contracting pneumonia. Your motorbike probably can't shield you from whatever weapons they have or use their own vehicles as an escape ramp either.

This looks like a job for...Uroboros. Well, you could probably handle these two by themselves as long as they aren't packing assault rifles. But the ramifications of the Mermen knowing there's someone on their tail might last beyond tonight and you can't exactly strategize in a situation of clear and present.

You reach into your leather jacket for your smartphone and _oh gog they're racing right for me with biker melee weapons-_

**== > Dauphine: JUST AGGRIEVE ALREADY!**

**== > FILE END**


End file.
